Tainted Earth: Smelters, Public Health, and the Environment

Notes

175 INTRODUCTION 1. Kery Murakami, “Tumbling Landmark—Smokestack Bites Dust,” Seattle Times, January 18, 1993, A-1. Details on the stack demolition reconstructed from ibid.; Rob Taylor , “Smokestack Now Smithereens; Smokestack’s Demolition Part of Toxic Cleanup,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 18, 1993, B-1; “ASARCO Stack Demolition Tacoma,” YouTube video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6YPDbWilCo, accessed January 8, 2013; and Bill Tobin, interview with author August 5, 2005, Vashon Island, Washington . Digital audio recording. File in author’s possession. 2. Donald MacMillan, Smoke Wars: Anaconda Copper, Montana Air Pollution, and the Courts, 1890–1924 (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2000); and Timothy J. LeCain, Mass Destruction: The Men and Giant Mines That Wired America and Scarred the Planet (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009). 3. Irwin Unger and Debi Unger, The Guggenheims: A Family History (New York: HarperCollins , 2005), 165, 287; Isaac F. Marcosson, Metal Magic: The Story of the American Smelting and Refining Company (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1949); and Michael Malone, “The Collapse of Western Metal Mining: An Historical Epitaph,” Pacific Historical Review 55 (August 1986): 455–464. 4. See, for example, MacMillan, Smoke Wars; M. A. Church, “Smoke Farming: Smelting and Agricultural Reform in Utah, 1900–1945,” Utah Historical Quarterly 72 (Summer 2004): 196–218; and John D. Wirth, Smelter Smoke in North America: The Politics of Transborder Pollution (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000). 5. See, for example, George R. Hill, “Report: Condition of Vegetation at Tacoma, August 26–27, 1952,” Branin v. ASARCO; S. M. Lane, Manager, East Helena Plant to W. G. Rouillard , “Memorandum: Horses—East Helena,” August 11, 1965, Branin v. ASARCO, 93CV -5132, Accession # 021-04-0102, Box 1-9, Location # 3050865, settlement papers obtained at Seattle Federal Records Center, hereafter referred to as Branin v. ASARCO. Unknown author, “Handwritten notes: WJB Smith—Dogs,” April 11–April 15 1969, Branin v. ASARCO. 6. See Washington State Department of Ecology, “Living with a Toxic Legacy,” http:// www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites_brochure/tacoma_smelter/2011/ts-hp.htm, accessed January 13, 2013. Notes 176 NOTES TO PAGES 4–7 7. “Human Lead Absorption—Texas” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (December 8, 1973), 405–407, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/lmrk095.htm, accessed April 24, 2013. 8. See Gene Baker, “Confidential: Events Pertaining to Lead Health Problem in Kellogg” (undated, reported to have been written in collaboration with attorneys in 1979 or 1980), in Edna Grace Yoss, Raymond Hans Yoss, Arlene Mae Yoss, Richard A. McCartney, Christina M. McCartney, Paula A. McCartney, Raymond E. Dennis, and Harley Dennis, by their guardian ad litem, Brain J. Linn, Plaintiffs, v. Bunker Hill Company, a Delaware corporation ; Gulf Resources & Chemical Corporation, a Delaware corporation; Defendants, No. CIV77 –2030, United States District Court for the District of Idaho (hereafter Yoss et al. v. Bunker Hill and Gulf); Bunker Hill Company, Lead Smelter Emission Record, 1971–1977 (n.d.), Yoss et al. v. Bunker Hill and Gulf, Exhibit #32; Philip J. Landrigan to the Record, “Memorandum: Lead Emission Patterns—Kellogg, Idaho, Smelter,” July 18, 1975, Yoss et al. v. Bunker Hill and Gulf, Files of Paul Whelan, Plaintiff’s attorney. 9. P. J. Landrigan, E. L. Baker Jr., R. G. Feldman, D. H. Cox, K. Eden, W. Orenstein, J. Mather, A. Yankel, and I. Lindern, “Increased Lead Absorption with Anemia and Slowed Nerve Conduction in Children Near a Lead Smelter,” Journal of Pediatrics 89 (1976): 904–910. 10. Samuel Milham Jr., MD, and Terrance Strong to Wallace Lane, MD, Washington State Health Services Division, “Memorandum: Tacoma Smelter Study,” November 2, 1972, Environmental Protection Agency Site File, Commencement Bay/Nearshore Tideflats ASARCO Smelter Facility Site File (hereafter, ASDSF), 1.1.1. 11. David C. Bellinger, “Lead,” Pediatrics 113, Suppl. 4 (2004): 1016–1022. 12. MacMillan, Smoke Wars; and Wirth, Smelter Smoke in North America. 13. MacMillan, Smoke Wars; Church, “Smoke Farming,” 196–218; and Wirth, Smelter Smoke in North America. 14. The El Paso study conducted by James McNeil was funded in equal thirds by ILZRO, ASARCO, and the Ethyl Corporation (producer of tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive). See John J. Sheehy to Files, “Memorandum: Gulf Resources & Chemical Corporation—ILZRO,” October 2, 1974, Yoss et al. v. Bunker Hill and Gulf. In northern Idaho Bunker Hill initially turned to ILZRO to conduct a study of children’s health in the Silver Valley, but there was opposition to this. Instead, Bunker Hill funded the Shoshone Project, which was said...