- Hello Jeff - I wonder how many pathgoens
have drained into the Skunk river over the years?
-
- This is really amazing information, especially
the fact that tissues, urine, etc drains into the city sewer system and
eventually the river.
-
- Patty
-
-
-
- Ames, Iowa Federal Animal
Lab Discharges Infectious Prion Wastes To Public Sewers
-
- EPA acknowledges sewage treatment
reconcentrates prions in sewage sludge - fecal feces.
-
- "The room in Building 5 where workers
perform necropsies has drains on the floor that eventually lead to the
Ames sewage treatment plant and then into the South Skunk River. Workers
flush tissue scraps, blood, urine and other items down the drain into a
heated storage tank and then on to the city sewage plant."
-
- ""It is known that CWD is an
environmental contaminant from work done at Colorado State University,"
Morgan wrote. "It most likely is a fecal contamination that occurs,
but that is not entirely proven (a good research project). It is known
the sewage treatment does not kill prions, and it is also known that CWD
is coming this direction naturally."
-
- [note:
- The US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) acknowledges that no sludge biosolids pathogen reduction method --
including composting -- inactivates infectious prions
-
- : "CRITICAL ISSUE: We are currently
prohibiting the discharge of untreated, potentially prion-contaminated
wastes to POTWs. Typical treatment and disinfection processes used by non-domestic
users and those used at Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) do not deactivate
prions. Prions will pass through the POTW as a pollutant to be released
into receiving waters and concentrated in the biosolids. . Biosolids are
the solids produced by POTWs and typically land applied to food and non-food
(grazing) crops." (EPA Region 8, May 2005 )
-
-
- Waste Dispute Threatens Disease
Lab's Work
-
- Workers and others fear poor
disposal practices mean animal illnesses the Ames facility studies could
reach Iowa's waters.
-
- By Perry Beeman
- DesMoines Register Staff Writer
- 6-18-6
-
- AMES, Ia. - Scientists at the National
Animal Disease Center in Ames are eager to begin unraveling the mysteries
of mad cow disease.
-
- As part of their work, they will infect
cattle with the altered protein that causes the fatal ailment that apparently
can be transmitted to humans who consume infected beef. They will study
the animals and dissect their carcasses after the livestock die.
-
- But lab officials have found themselves
besieged in the past few months by internal and public criticism for the
way the facility handles body parts, blood, urine and feces of animals
with other diseases caused by the same kind of altered protein responsible
for mad cow.
-
- So the lab has suspended the start of
its study until federal, state and local officials can investigate its
disposal practices and be assured that they don't endanger Iowans or the
state's livestock industry.
-
- Interviews with workers at the internationally
prominent facility, along with a review of enforcement records, staff e-mails,
meeting tapes and an analysis of nationwide industry standards, revealed
a series of potentially devastating environmental and worker-safety flaws
and defensiveness to scrutiny created by whistle-blowers.
-
- The "NADC could be shut down"
over reports of the problems, acting director Ronald Horst told workers
at one point. Horst, who was the acting director of the lab for about 1years,
returned to a research role in May.
-
- The problems became public after two
animal-care workers told their bosses and Ames city officials that they
feared the lab wasn't properly treating diseased-animal wastes that eventually
end up in the South Skunk River. The river doesn't provide city drinking
water downstream from the lab, but it is used for fishing, canoeing and
watering livestock.
-
- Lab officials contend the heating system
they use on the waste before it is sent to the Ames sewage plant and on
to the river deactivates disease-causing agents. Ames city officials, knowing
the city plant can't neutralize those substances, joined the lab in appointing
a panel of international experts to review the lab's methods. In the meantime,
the lab's procedures remain the same.
-
- State health officials have downplayed
the health risk to Iowans. Some animal diseases don't affect humans, and
others would require a person to eat infected parts of an animal.
-
- "I don't think anything here is
a huge violation, but they are an indication that they need to look at
management," Wayne Gieselman, who runs Iowa's environmental protection
department, said of the lab's environmental issues. "People should
be able to feel like they are safely running operations."
-
- Since the sewage issue became public
in May, the Des Moines Sunday Register has learned of several other instances
in which the disease lab has run afoul of state and federal agencies for
worker-safety and environmental lapses. The facility has racked up fines
or proposed fines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the
Iowa Department of Natural Resources, as well as citations from the U.S.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which does not fine other
federal agencies. The disease lab is a federal agency.
-
- Animal waste as sewage
-
- The sewage issue, however, seems to pose
the greatest concern for Iowans and the livestock industry - and threatens
the reputation of what is considered the nation's pre-eminent animal disease
lab.
-
- The 83-building center is located on
the east side of Ames. The 304 employees - 62 of them scientists - study
the most serious domestic poultry and livestock diseases. It's the animal-world
equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta,
the leading federal research agency concerning human ailments.
-
- Sandy Miller Hays, the spokeswoman for
the Ames lab, defended the facility's practices. "NADC is run very
well," she said. "We are proud of NADC. It is a star doing very
important work."
-
- Richard Auwerda and Timothy Gogerty are
the two animal caretakers who went public with what they considered a serious
problem: Their lab was using a less-elaborate safety system than its sister
facility, the National Veterinary Services Laboratories, which is located
on the same campus. Both agencies are part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
but answer to different divisions of the USDA.
-
- Auwerda and Gogerty assist scientists
in performing necropsies - examinations of dead animals, some of which
carry diseases that could devastate Iowa's livestock as well as elk and
deer populations should they escape the research center.
-
- For instance, in a necropsy the workers
might cut the spine of an animal into pieces and split the brain in half
with a meat saw. Those nervous-system tissues carry the prion - or altered
protein - that causes diseases such as mad cow.
-
- Comparing the labs
-
- The room in Building 5 where workers
perform necropsies has drains on the floor that eventually lead to the
Ames sewage treatment plant and then into the South Skunk River. Workers
flush tissue scraps, blood, urine and other items down the drain into a
heated storage tank and then on to the city sewage plant.
-
- The veterinary services lab on the same
campus also has necropsy rooms with drains on the floor. At that facility,
those drains are plugged during procedures, and workers haul out body parts
and excretions to be incinerated. They use straw to soak up fluids and
feces so that those substances can be burned, too.
-
- Gogerty wondered why the disease lab
wasn't following the same procedures as the veterinary services lab, -
plugging the drain and using straw to soak up fluids - especially considering
that they often work with animals with the same or similar diseases.
-
- Auwerda had the same question.
-
- "I think that is the safest way,
because nothing is going down the drain," he said of the veterinary
lab's procedures.
-
- On Feb. 28, Auwerda received an unsolicited
e-mail from Dr. Ronald Morgan, who is the head of animal resources at the
veterinary services lab. His facility had been caring for elk infected
with chronic wasting disease, and the remaining animals were going to be
transferred to the disease lab. Morgan explained in the e-mail that the
state veterinarian and biosafety and animal-welfare officials had demanded
that his lab plug drains, provide bedding for the living animals and incinerate
all wastes when working with chronic wasting disease.
-
- "It is known that CWD is an environmental
contaminant from work done at Colorado State University," Morgan wrote.
"It most likely is a fecal contamination that occurs, but that is
not entirely proven (a good research project). It is known the sewage treatment
does not kill prions, and it is also known that CWD is coming this direction
naturally."
-
- Miller Hays said the disease lab uses
a different - but still effective - method to deactivate prions because
its heating and ventilation system can't handle the dust matter from straw
that is needed to run a complete "bag and burn" disposal operation.
-
- Auwerda said the disease lab used no
bedding and left its drains open. It did incinerate most body parts, he
said. Any leftover tissue fragments and fluids that go down the drain are
heated at 250 degrees for 30 minutes in a storage tank, lab officials said.m
[note: University of Guelph, Toronto, Canada, says temperatures in
excess of 1400 F (760 C) are needed to inactivate prions: ]
-
- They say the heat is enough to deactivate
the prions, but that is still a matter of scientific debate.
-
- Auwerda said the disease lab's own manual
seems to require that the wastes be held in bleach for a half-hour or more
before the heating, to be doubly sure the prions are deactivated. That's
not what happens in practice, he said.
-
- Miller Hays said she didn't know whether
the disease lab would change its procedures after it moves to a new half-billion-dollar
facility next year.
-
- Meanwhile, the review panel will meet
through the summer to study the disease lab's sewage treatment practices,
and the mad cow experiments that were to start on May 11 remain on hold.
All other work - and waste-disposal procedures - continue as before.
-
- http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AI
D=/20060618/BUSINESS01/606180340/1030
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
|
