HOW DID WE ALL GET HERE?

In 1989, there was the first serious fire at the facility. Even trash and debris inside the facility had to be hauled away to a hazardous waste landfill. The number of deaths recorded in the adjacent census tract, 1160, went up dramatically after the 1989 fire, and had just started to come down when the 1992 fire occurred. There were other fires at the facility, according to the personal accounts of its neighbors, in the years between the first large fire and the final fire in 1992. The Phoenix Fire Department allowed the facility to not have/use a fire sprinkler system, normally required, even though the facility had a fire system ready to connect. Somehow the City of Phoenix gave this variance despite the previous, serious fire in 1989. Also, the City of Phoenix stopped annual fire inspections of industrial facilities, including QPC, at the same time.

In May 1992, state OSHA inspected the facility and noted that working conditions were severe and unsafe at the facility. There were unlabeled barrels of chemicals, untrained worker/chemical handlers speaking little English, fumes so strong in building that workers' eyes burned, but OSHA fined the facility not even one nickel. In spring of 1992, the county air agency which issues air pollution permits to industrial facilities questioned QPC's air permit renewal and wrote that it was concerned that all the new chemical processes at the facility would cause a spontaneous fire in the wet scrubber (air pollution equipment). QPC replied with 32 pages of possible chemical combinations, from the letter "A" to the letter "I," then suggested since it had spent "40+ hours working on this," it has done enough, and that unless there is "excessive heat or light," no fire should occur. The county air agency issued the permit anyway and the facility had a fire just a few months later. The fire started in the wet scrubber, according to all eye witnesses quoted in Phoenix Fire Department Investigation, yet the final fire report states cause of fire is unknown. Although the facility reports its toxic chemical inventory, the Phoenix Fire Department had never implemented a system to provide this chemical data to firefighters at the scene of a fire or spill. When the fire started on August 31, 1992, at around 11:30 am, the facility's workers try to handle the fire before calling for help. The neighboring community members call in the fire. The fire burned for 12 hours, then smoldered for a week. Plastic containers made up 20% of the facility's contents. A thick cloud of smoke billowed high into the air, then sunk and moved along the ground and lingered in the neighborhoods. No one had warned the community to turn off their homes' ventilation system, so chemicals and smoke invaded the homes.

The state law at the time of the QPC fire event required the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to conduct air monitoring during these types of chemical fires to determine what is in the smoke and how much of the smoke is what chemicals. The ADEQ did not even own the proper air monitoring equipment. This lack of monitoring data has been used consistently through the years as an excuse to not help anyone medically or to decontaminate homes. Eyewitness accounts from hundreds of local residents and even television coverage showing smoke pervasive in adjacent neighborhood even as far away as the schools a mile from fire site is ignored as evidence that chemicals from the fire moved into the community. The Environmental Protection Agency (federal agency) claims that it could not determine with a reasonable scientific certainty that the chemical smoke did not go off-site in a study released a year ago. That study is under review from TOSC, a group of university professors.

At the early time of the fire, there was a partial, late evacuation at best of some homes in the vicinity. The schools downwind self-evacuated after staff and children were choking in the classrooms, eyes burning. The children were moved to another school that is just further downwind. Then, when the regular time for school dismissal come up, the children were dropped off back at the evacuated schools in the smoke, and walked home through the dense cloud of toxic smoke that lay close to the ground.

The neighborhood "committee" formed, which would later become the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix. The committee asked immediately for meetings with various government agencies to ask what happened, what went wrong, and to ask for medical assistance as the community fell ill. Many of the pets and animals in the affected community died. The representatives of the county and state health agencies both met with the committee and informed them that the common health symptoms of rashes, headaches, and hair falling out (classic signs of chemical poisoning) in the affected community were the result of "stress and hysteria" before any scientific sampling or health surveys were conducted.

No one came to help from the various agencies, so the community had to go to the press to ask for help. Steve Brittle of Don't Waste Arizona, Inc. (DWA) was asked by then State Representative Sandra Kennedy to assist the community. When a press conference was staged at Martin Luther King Elementary School in October 1992, Steve and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) representative who attended the meeting became ill after being in the building for two hours. The ADEQ representative asked the ADEQ to conduct chemical sampling. Initial testing in 1992 included one of only two homes ever tested for chemical contaminants OUTSIDE the fire area by ADEQ. The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) conducted a limited health survey near the fire event in October 1992 and found that 85% of people north and east of the fire site were sick, then wrote a memo three months later. ADHS, despite repeated requests, refused to do a follow-up health survey. Later, ADHS would blame diet, cleanliness of homes their representatives admittedly never visited, and even race as a cause for the illnesses. Ty Canez of ADEQ's Environmental Justice Program even told a meeting of the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix, "black people have bad lungs anyway."

In December 1992, the first sampling results were in, showing high levels of zinc and other metals in the homes. By then several people have died in the affected community under strange circumstances. When these deaths were mapped, they showed the deaths in a straight line going east from the fire, the same route of the toxic plume. In meeting after meeting with bureaucrats, people from the affected neighborhoods complain of maladies, illnesses, and deaths of relatives, neighbors, and friends.

DWA members petitioned the ATSDR in January 1993 and then was promptly ignored. Phone calls and letters went unanswered. ATSDR never went to affected residents' homes, never conducted a health survey, and basically did absolutely nothing for this community except rubber stamp the state agencies' cover-up. ATSDR DID conduct an initial speculative study without knowing which chemicals were in the fire, had no recommendations, which the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) distorted into an excuse to do nothing, stating that the ATSDR recommended no action be taken. Once the chemicals that were in the fire were determined, ATSDR never conducted a study with the real data. ATSDR disavowed knowing about blood samples and the health survey results, but made no effort to gather the data when it was told about their existence. During one of the only times ATSDR had actually contacted DWA, it did so to state that the health survey form was sufficient, yet all the while it had its OWN health studies already promulgated for these types of chemical accidents that it did not provide or suggest.

After several meetings at ADEQ and pressure from demonstrations from the community, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) issued an order to QPC in February 1993 to decontaminate the affected homes and provide medical attention, then never enforced it. When the state attorney general's office was asked about it, the attorney claimed that the Attorney General represented ADEQ, not the affected community, and that the matter was "open and unresolved." She would later go to work for ADEQ. The compliance order to decontaminate the homes initially ordered by ADEQ was mysteriously dropped. One excuse given was that no "link" to the fire could be found. Curiously enough, the law (40 CFR 265.56) makes no reference at all for a requirement for a "link." Second, a link was clearly and obviously available. In November 1994, DWA and Doris Campbell of Concerned Residents of South Phoenix met with U.S. Attorney for Arizona Janet Napolitano to ask her to intervene and enforce this order. In January 1995, Janet Reno visited South Mountain High School, where she was asked by Concerned Residents and DWA to enforce this order. She replied that she understood it was "under investigation."

DWA undertook a health survey in April and May of 1993 because it became quite obvious that the state and the ATSDR had no intention of ever doing any health survey despite repeated requests. The ADHS provided $5,000 to conduct this health survey. The instrument (form) for the health survey was designed by ADHS. DWA ran this form by a statistical expert at ASU and he concluded that the survey instrument was flawed. ATSDR, in its only proactive contact with the community that petitioned it, called and said the instrument (health survey form) was just fine. DWA undertook the survey as a representative sampling of possible adverse health effects so that it could be shown that follow-up with a legitimate health survey on the part of state and federal agencies with annual budgets of millions of dollars was legitimate and necessary. The small health survey that was approved by ATSDR was completed and then ignored by the state agencies who claimed the surveys "were unreadable or not completely filled out." When DWA asked which ones were unreadable or incomplete, no answer was ever given. To this date no proper health survey has been conducted despite continuous and widely reported adverse health effects and a sky-rocketing death rate that has been statistically proven. ATSDR has a valid survey form but has mysteriously refused to use it.

Knowing that the ADHS and county health department were going to "study" the rising death rate and expecting a flawed conclusion, the committee, now Concerned Residents of South Phoenix, and DWA, held a demonstration at the state capital to ask for help. The ADHS and county health agencies release to the press that there had not been an increase in the death rate. An ASU student (a DWA volunteer) showed the agencies their math error, and they respond in writing about how she was wrong.The community hired an ASU professor, an internationally-known statistical expert, to review the mortality study. When he proved that the death increase was statistically significant, the county admitted its error and concluded the death rate had indeed increased, and blamed their fundamental "error" on a "software problem." The death rate in 1992 for the affected census tract was 45. In 1993, it was 57. In 1994, it was 51. In 1995, it was 58. Meanwhile, the overall population of the census tract was declining by 10%. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) had put out a community newsletter that stated there was no significant increase in deaths, but when the ASU professor proved there was an increase in deaths, the next ADEQ newsletter dropped the subject of the deaths, but it exhorted people to clean their homes. The mortality study conducted by the county and approved by the state contained fundamental math errors. It erroneously concluded that there was no statistically significant rise in the death rate in the affected area. The state promised to do a follow up. What the state followed up with was to include other census tracts not effected by the chemical fire to "water down" the death rate and conclude that every thing was normal in the QPC affected neighborhood. This strategy was exactly opposite of that used for the chemical sampling where sick homes were compared with sick homes. The ADHS tried to conduct a new mortality study using death certificates, but rebuffed personal visits of family members of the deceased and wouldn't return calls to family members who wanted to turn over autopsy results and medical records to assist. Later ADHS would assert that it didn't get enough of a response and medical records to gather a statistically valid sample, so it did nothing. It is ATSDR's job also to educate and advise doctors about how to diagnose or treat people exposed to chemicals in these types of situations, but never did, so doctors would be unlikely to diagnose and put chemicals as a cause of death on a death certificate anyway.

A review of exactly where the deaths occurred in census tract 1160 will show a shocking number of deaths in the trail of the fire plume, especially on Chipman. A trail of five deaths on this street within two blocks and within a few weeks had focused attention on Chipman. Now twelve to fourteen deaths are reported there. The state had promised this information about the actual locations and dates of deaths last summer of 1997, but still has not provided this information, although it is in its computer database that could easily provide this information.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) claimed the first sampling it conducted in October 1992 was somehow erroneous, and decided to conduct another sampling, offering the community input into the methods and homes to be sampled. Dr. Sneller, air allergen specialist, studied some affected homes using sophisticated air monitoring equipment and found products of combustion in the initial re-testing of homes, then was immediately removed from the project. ADEQ refused to return his phone calls. Later, it is found that the chemical sampling protocol excluded the community's suggestions, despite previous promises to the contrary. "Control" homes were chosen for sampling that were affected by the fire, and a world-renown statistician rebuked the agencies on television for this obviously and clearly unscientific protocol. The state still ignored this expert information and proceeded with the sampling that was obviously designed to be inconclusive by design.

There was a sharp contrast in the chemical sampling between the unscientific use of contaminated "control homes" and the only two homes actually tested outside the fire event. Homes in the fire event had dust that was as much as ten percent metals and had detectable levels of metals in the air. The two homes outside the area of the fire event had NO detectable level of metals and a total absence of any kind of contamination, including fluorides. Nobody was sick in these homes either.

The risk assessment for the QPC fire based on the contaminants found was flawed in several ways. Metals, which are listed as toxic chemicals in large enough quantities were considered to be pure, and just nutrients. The particular chemical compound containing these metals was never researched--many are poisonous and toxic. No consideration was given to the huge amount of acids released into the fire or the metal salts that would be formed and help establish the "link." An absurd assumption was made that the enormous amounts and high levels of nasty contaminants found in the air ducts could not come down on people. (This would certainly be news to the scientists who found that Legionnaire's Disease emanated from air ducting and air conditioning.) According to the state, this scenario could never happen. Later technical questions were never answered. Risks assessment are for cancer risk, and have a limited usefulness, if any, for health risks other than cancer. If a chemical makes you ill or kills you but doesn't cause cancer, a risk assessment won't work. In 1995, representatives of the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix spoke about the flaws in the QPC fire risk assessment at a conference on risk assessment sponsored by the Commission on the Arizona Environment.

The results of the second round of sampling came in and without consulting or even informing the community, the agencies declared that the level of chemicals were not enough to cause these illnesses. Sandra Kennedy's home, which was the only home sampled during the first two samplings, showed the levels of metal contaminants rising by a factor of 30-40 as time went on.

The community refused to accept this and marched on the governor's office. Symington promised to visit the affected area, which he did, and he promised to set up a "clinic." The "clinic" was set up, but it proved nearly impossible to get into the clinic. People who asked were told that there would be an appointment available, but in two months. People with "appointments" waited as long as six hours, then were finally provided minimal lung capacity testing, then accused of lying about smoking when their lungs showed obstruction. DWA provided a six-page, single-space list of people and their phone numbers identified as being ill from a compilation of the health survey, then the clinic called everyone on the list and told them NOT TO COME to the clinic. When confronted about this, the clinic claimed it was "confused" about the purpose of the clinic. Yet these people were never called back and told to come to the clinic. The clinic regularly sent solicitations for donations throughout the community, but never mentioned it was the "QPC clinic." Also, instead of mailing any notice about the clinic, a "QPC storefront" more than two miles from the affected community was set up. In order to get into the clinic, a person had to find the QPC storefront, which had no sign visible from the road and no phone number listed in the phone book. The storefront arrangement was made despite repeated requests from the community about actual notification about the clinic. Later, it would be proclaimed that there was no health problem because people did not go to the "clinic."

Dr. Armstead, the doctor at the clinic who was supposed to be in charge of the QPC problem, stated on a television show that even with the few people he had examined, it was obvious that the QPC fire caused the health problems in the community. Within days of the show's airing, he was no longer in Arizona.

Despite repeated requests for health sampling in the form of medical tests such as blood or hair testing and other tests for chemical residues, no testing was conducted. No doctors were informed about possible chemical illness or what to look for. Later, after the affected community was told the clinic had closed, it was secretly kept open and some people had blood tests conducted. The toxicologist for the QPC matter, Dr. Leslie Boyer, ordered a third round of chemical sampling in January 1994 for the homes of people because the high level of contaminants found in their blood and bodies had no other explanation. The third round of sampling was kept secret from the rest of the community. Later, Boyer would suggest that people should stop using copper bottom pans, and asked some patients, "Do you really want these metals out of your body?" The sampling results of homes were not shared with the people whose houses had been sampled, until DWA demanded the information under the state freedom-of-information act and gave it to them, then ADEQ told the rest of the community about it.

Dr. Boyer was paid $35K for her work, but despite her contract's requirements to do so, there was no evidence that she ever consulted with anyone's doctor. Her Poison Control Center in Tucson, which was on the brink of closing down, was suddenly funded with $1.6 million. When asked on camera about the adverse health effects of exposure to the chemical contaminants found in the affected homes, she evaded answering the questions for over 45 minutes. To date, she has never told the community anything about what they have been asking her. DWA hired an expert in chemistry, a Ph. D. who clearly linked the chemicals from the ADEQ sampling to the fire. This information was refuted by an expert hired by the ADEQ, unfortunately, the "refuter" claimed time constraints and waxed philosophical about sea breezes and his report contained serious contradictions. The public is urged to look in the file and review these papers and comments submitted on these papers. Nonetheless, a link clearly exists: The chemicals found in the homes of the affected neighborhood have no other source than from the QPC fire, no surrounding facilities and their emissions could account for the metals and acids in the homes. The chemicals in the homes correlate to what burned in the QPC fire. These same chemicals were found in blood tests of affected residents. The widespread illnesses and the symptoms match perfectly with the chemicals released in the fire. The widespread illnesses did not start until after the fire event.

The community organized a class action lawsuit which was filed in August 1993. By spring 1995, the company settled the suit. The judge in the case ordered certain notices to be put in certain newspapers and people had to file a certain form and paperwork to document their claims. Many people never heard about it, and the lawfirm handling the matter lost some of the people's claims. About 650 people filed claims that were not lost by the firm for about $900,000. The company only had a million dollar insurance policy because ADEQ doesn't require companies to carry enough insurance to cover the damage to neighborhoods and the environment that can occur if there is a fire or disaster at a company. The company also put in some of its own money. Neither Concerned Residents of South Phoenix nor DWA received any money or reimbursement for their work in the lawsuit or matter. In April 1994, the Commission on the Arizona Environment held a conference on Environmental Equity, Environmental Justice, and Environmental Racism. Several speakers and participants were from the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix, who highlighted the problems in the community.

In May and June of 1994, the community became embroiled in a zoning dispute with the City of Phoenix when Mechtronics decided it wanted to expand. The community's position was that it had enough of these types of industries in its midst, showing the tons of toxic chemicals being released into the community by the Mechtronics facility. The City Council voted for Mechtronics, after making the community wait until 12:30 am to speak, then trying to allow it only 15 minutes to express its concerns. When told about the illnesses and deaths in the community, Councilpersons Craig Tribken and Frances Barwood, and appointed Mayor Thelda Williams laughed loudly.

DWA called the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and asked that it enforce the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA) because it believed Mechtronics was not in compliance with that law. The EPA representative told DWA to do the enforcement itself, using the citizen suit provision of EPCRA, claiming the EPA did not have the resources itself to do this enforcement. DWA began citizen suit enforcement of EPCRA, and found many, many other facilities out of compliance with the EPCRA law. DWA is now the number one citizen suit enforcer of EPCRA in America.

When DWA realized that the environmental safety net in Arizona was non-existent, that even the worst of disasters would be ignored, that environmental laws would not be enforced, and the state agencies made only political decisions and not scientific ones, DWA realized that communities, especially minority communities, were entirely on their own. DWA undertook an enforcement program under the EPCRA law and learned how to calculated chemical storage and releases. The EPA funded projects to deal with some of the problems identified in South Phoenix related to emergency response and planning. First was the Operation South Phoenix Response, which was a drill of sorts to show how the Phoenix Fire Department should respond to a chemical spill. This turned into the High Risk/High Priority Project, which sought to further analyze the problems associated with emergency response and preparedness in South Phoenix and look for solutions. The High Risk/High Priority Project eventually invited Steve Brittle of Don't Waste Arizona and Ray Ferguson of Arizona Time for Truth to join the project. The ADEQ fought the efforts to talk about the QPC fire in the Final Report, but finally, the steering committee of the High Risk/High Priority Project voted to include the information in the Final Report. The Final Report was prepared in November 1995, but Russell Rhoades, the ADEQ Director held off signing it until late spring 1996. The Final Report recommends, among other things, a shelter-in-place education program for the 85040 zip code due to the close proximity of residential neighborhoods, schools, and nursing homes to a concentration of industries that use, store, and release toxic chemicals.

The ADEQ also received a grant from EPA to study Environmental Justice, but did not allow members of the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix to join the steering committee. And when representatives of the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix tried to attend the meetings and participate, they were ignored by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) staff, who never even spoke to them. Later, when this ADEQ Environmental Justice Committee had its only public meeting designed to solicit public comment, only a representative of DWA made comment, but ADEQ never responded to these comments.

When the QPC release was revisited by DWA in terms of a "reportable release" of chemicals, which is a serious matter, it found that a CERCLA and EPCRA reportable release from the QPC fire had occurred of several toxic chemicals. This information was supplied to the EPA, which so far have determined that they could not prove that the chemicals left the facility site due to the lack of air monitoring data. Chemical sampling in the homes and correlating illnesses prove otherwise. Also, the EPA mysteriously ignored the 6000 lbs of Fluoboric Acid at the QPC facility. This fluoboric acid degrades to HF and Boron, and would account for the boron and fluorides found in the chemical sampling. The degraded fluoboric acid equates to around 1200 lbs of HF, 12 times the legally reportable release threshold amount. TOSC will review the EPA's work and comment on the study, which could cause the EPA to modify its original findings.

DWA and Concerned Residents of South Phoenix met with an EPA representative in the offices of the Arizona Emergency Response Commission in February 1996 to ask for help and enforcement. [The letter to her about the reportable quantity release is printed elsewhere in this newsletter on page 10.] A letter was also sent to Felicia Marcus, the EPA Regional Administrator, asking for her review and help in the matter. [This letter is also reproduced in entirety elsewhere in this newsletter on page 10.) In May 1996, Christina Hankins and Steve Brittle flew to San Francisco to plead for EPA's help and intervention in the matter. At about this same time, the community discovered the TOSC program, which is an EPA-funded program to have university faculty help affected communities understand issues of contamination, clean-ups, and medical attention. [TOSC is Technical Outreach Services to Communities--see related article on page 9.]

Throughout the summer of 1996, DWA and Concerned Residents of South Phoenix approached EPA about help, and EPA told them that the state agencies insisted there were no ill people in South Phoenix and that Steve Brittle of DWA was making it all up.

In October 1996, the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix, Don't Waste Arizona, Inc., and the Coalition of Valley Citizens Opposed to Sumitomo staged a large demonstration and rally in front of the hotel at Metrocenter where Felicia Marcus of EPA was appearing at an air quality conference sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Felicia Marcus came out of the hotel to the demonstration and spoke with many of the people from South Phoenix, and saw their rashes and heard from them.

When DWA and the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix informed EPA they planned to block President Clinton's motorcade at his October 31, 1996 campaign visit at ASU until he declared the QPC matter an emergency and a disaster, the EPA promised to come to the community and investigate. The Concerned Residents of South Phoenix and Don't Waste Arizona sponsored a bus to take people to the October 31, 1996, Clinton campaign event and passed out hundreds of fliers about the South Phoenix contamination and illness problem, demanding environmental justice.

EPA held an introductory meeting in December 1996, and ATSDR and TOSC also spoke. On the same day, TOSC, ATSDR, and EPA toured some homes in the affected area and spoke with some of the survivors. In 1997, ATSDR began offering consultations with physicians. EPA conducted chemical sampling in 34 affected homes and 5 control homes in May and June 1997. For the first time true control homes were used in the study. The EPA had no trouble finding control homes outside of the fire event, bringing into question the competency of the state agency, ADEQ, who four years earlier failed to use true, scientifically valid, control homes. Those results were announced on September 23, 1997. Indoor air sampling will occur in these homes in November 1997, with those results being released in January or February 1998. The difference between the findings in EPA and ADEQ samplings is published elsewhere in this newsletter.