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Officials continue to ignore Fayette’s, South Fulton’s ‘canary in a coal mine’ As far back as the 19th century coal miners used canaries as an early warning system and a life insurance policy. The reason was simple. Birds and many other creatures in the wild are much more susceptible to some of the nasty things lurking stealthily in the air underground. Too bad the residents of Fayette and Fulton counties didn’t have a similar kind of early warning system as they inhaled sickening onion-like chemicals in May, June, July, August and September. But, wait. They did! We know that wildlife, including birds, bees, butterflies and insects, near the center of the 40 square-mile hot zone around the Philip Services Corp. (PSC) plant outside Fairburn were either greatly diminished or nearly absent. It’s just that having no prior history with incidents of known chemical inhalation, adults and their children did not put together the mysterious variations in wildlife last summer and the illnesses their families and pets were experiencing. That’s not the case anymore. Georgia Division of Public Health (DPH) has completed an initial look at the impact on humans. In the report DPH also provided a cursory, yet noticeably incomplete, view of the impact on domestic animals. The impact to wildlife was not covered in the report. Hopefully, the ongoing Health Consultation will adequately address the synthesis of the impact to humans, domestic animals and wildlife. Others involved in the case are doing so. I urge DPH to do the same by actually taking the time to contact and fully and objectively interview those in the neighborhoods who witnessed the effects they say resulted from the presence of propyl mercaptan, MOCAP and perhaps other chemicals introduced into their communities and their lives. For their part, it’s beginning to seem like Georgia Environmental Protection Division will do anything to keep from acknowledging the ongoing odors from the immediate vicinity of the PSC plant. But why shouldn’t they? After all, if the source of illnesses to people and contamination to wildlife turns out to be the plant, EPD would look pretty silly coming down on PSC when the agency itself has displayed outright negligence in following through with its obligatory verification of mandatory permit requirements. Of course, the problem goes back long before PSC purchased the property in 1997. It goes all the way back to 1990 when the first company bought the facility from Fulton County and the first solid waste handling permit was issued by EPD. As has been reported by The Citizen in previous months, EPD has never received nor asked for the required annual reports of waste products brought into the plant over the past 16 years. Never, until the pervasive onion-like chemical smell early this year in Fulton and Fayette triggered the need. It begs the question, is the chemical industry in Georgia immune from complying with state-required regulations? Is EPD, the permitting agency, so incompetent that it cannot or will not enforce compliance of the permits it issues? Who really pulls EPD’s strings? Could it be the waste companies? Could it be the agency itself, failing to ask the General Assembly to tighten regulations, as Congressman David Scott recently suggested? Or could it be legislators themselves, who fail to force the agency to tighten up on regulations and to adequately fund it to address compliance issues? In its most recent cover-their-rear attempt to dismiss public concerns over odors coming from the area of the plant, EPD announced last week that the odor came from a Fulton County sewage lift station on Oakley Industrial Boulevard. EPD Emergency Response Unit Coordinator Gary Andrews explained the agency’s conclusion on pinpointing the source, kind of. Andrews said EPD reached the conclusion that the Oakley station was the source of the odor based on a visit to the area Nov. 13 and two visits the following day. Mind you, the Nov. 13 visit was initiated when your newspaper notified the South Fulton/Fayette Community Task Force after smelling a very strong odor a stone’s throw from the plant at 9:10 p.m. The task force then called EPD. Fairburn Fire Department was called and also documented the odor. Neighbors in Milam Manor II also smelled it. Others traveling past the plant on Spence Road between 9-10 p.m. on Nov. 13 were sickened by the smell. So was I. Again. While waiting on EPD to arrive, George Nicholson, Connie Biemiller and I rode the neighborhoods, trying to track the movement of the odor. It began to dissipate, west of the plant, then north of it. None of us were able to smell by the time EPD arrived at about 10:30. At her suggestion, we accompanied the EPD staff to the Oakley/Graham Drive site just to see if the smell originated there. While at the Oakley station, none of us could smell anything! Connie returned to hook up with EPD minutes later at the staff’s request after smelling something in the vicinity. Connie explained that the new odor was not the sickening one many of us smelled nearly two hours earlier. None of that mattered. Like the lap dogs of industry, EPD had their official answer. Like magic, the smell that wasn’t the smell became the smell. And we’re supposed to believe EPD? As readers of this newspaper, now you know the rest of the story. Perhaps Public Health and EPD could learn a low-tech lesson from history as part of their efforts to unravel the ongoing mystery of the illnesses in Fayette and south Fulton. After all, canaries in coals mines told the tale. login to post comments | Ben Nelms's blog
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