7 Deadly Cities

• By
• Shannon Smart

Image by Foxtongue

Lead poisoning makes radiation look like a kidney tickle, slowly creeping into your body and causing ADHD, boob cancer, shriveled 'nads and brain damage

When a disaster like an earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown hits, there’s generally an ensuing scramble to assemble survival kits, resurrect emergency plans and pour concrete for those bunkers we keep meaning to build. The fear of Chernobyl-style radiation poisoning is valid of course, but for many places around the world, toxic assaults on people’s health occur daily—and are sometimes far more pernicious.

For all our wrinkled brows over Japan’s seeping nuclear reactors, it’s likely not going to be a China Syndrome catastrophe that does us in, but rather our ostensibly "safe" homes—minefields littered with hidden dangers: the fry pan; those strawberries; your mascara, hair straightener and soap; the reusable plastic containers you carry your lunch in. Riddled with carcinogens, the common household has the potential to mutate your babies, suffocate your parakeet and give you boob tumors.

Each year, the American non-profit Blacksmith Institute publishes a ranking of the world’s worst toxins. In 2010, the analysis singled out the top six “toxic threats” on the planet today; at the top of that list was lead, followed by mercury, chromium, arsenic, pesticides and radionuclides.

Granville Online took the worst of these offenders—that scourge of hand-me-down baby cribs and imported Fisher-Price toys—lead, and looked at which North American regions are at highest risk of being poisoned.

Vintage “edible lead” paint and varnish. Mmmm good. (Image: findmeacure.com)

But first, a little more about lead...

Buried deep in the ground, naturally occurring lead doesn’t pose much of a threat; however, high levels of the heavy metal are released through burning fuels, metal ore mining and other industrial processes.

A potent nerve poison, lead is no longer common in products like paint and gasoline, due to strict regulations in North America. But if your home was built before 1950, there may be lead in the plumbing, and entire communities may be affected by old water distribution systems. As well, antique furniture may be coated in lead paint, and imported toys may not meet the safety requirements for Canada and the US.

However, even if your house is brand-new, all of your furniture is brand-new, and you whittled Junior’s action figures yourself, you’re still not in the clear; lead is still essential to the production of batteries and can be found in some ceramic glazes, cosmetics, ammunition and traditional medicines.

Anyone working in the mining industry is at particularly high risk of exposure, as mining operations are responsible for the majority of lead released into North American soil, air and water—mostly through disposal into landfills or holding ponds.

Metal mining and manufacturing and chemical manufacturing industries in North America pump out nearly three quarters of the 5.7 billion kilograms of toxic pollution released into the environment every year (think about that: that’s approximately the equivalent in weight to the 8.4 million 150-pound people). Canadian companies are the source of about 37 percent of that staggering total.

A smeltery worker gets in his daily dose of lead. (Image: Flickr / LAC/BAC)

How to get lead poisoning

The most likely way of being poisoned is through inhaling lead particles or ingesting contaminated food or water. But there’s no use calling poison control if you suspect exposure: lead is a “bio-accumulate,” building up in the body over time, in organs such as the kidneys, liver and bones.

Long-term exposure to lead can cause stupidity, flipper babies, hyperactivity, crankiness, anarchy and impaired growth or damage to the 'nads, lungs and immune system. Eventually, lead poisoning can lead to coma, convulsions, cancer and death. Werd.

Makes you wonder if Colonel Mustard (who favoured the lead pipe, in the library, for offing his Clue-less acquaintances) wasn’t at just as much risk simply carrying the murder weapon as were his intended victims...

The Blacksmith Institute estimates that lead poisoning impacts up to 22 million people worldwide. So, how does your city stack up?

7 North American cities chock full of lead:

Life near Red Dog mine in remote northwestern Alaska.

(Image: Flickr / code poet)

Kotzebue, Alaska

Red Dog Operations in northwestern Alaska topped the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s (CEC) list of companies contributing toxins to the soil. The open-pit zinc and lead mine won the dubious distinction by a landslide (har har)—the Utah mine that took second place released only a quarter of the pollution Red Dog did.

Accounting for 10 percent of the global supply, the mine is the world’s largest producer of zinc and also houses the largest zinc reserves.

Located in a remote region of the continent, Red Dog employs most of the 800 or so residents of Noatak and Kivalina, the two towns closest to the mine, and according to the Alaska Division of Public Health [PDF], “other than adults employed at or by the Red Dog Mine, no residents of Noatak or Kivalina have elevated blood-lead levels.”

Great, so only 93 percent of area residents are potentially at risk of a fatal heart attack, stroke or memory loss as a result of lead poisoning.

KC Recycling, in Trail, BC, creates the second-highest lead emissions

in North America. (Flickr / Sports Suburban)

Trail, British Columbia

Trail, British Columbia, is situated on the Columbia River in the West Kootenay region of the province. With a population of 7,237, the small town houses some of North America’s biggest mining industry heavyweights.

One of these, KC Recycling, creates the second-highest lead emissions in North America. In 2006, the Trail-based company released more than 35,000 metric tonnes of lead or lead compounds into BC’s air, soil and water.

Teck Cominco, another important player in the town’s economy, has operations in Trail that rank as one of the world’s largest zinc and lead smelting and refining complexes. In 2009, Teck refined 240,000 tonnes of zinc and 73,000 tonnes of lead.

Mining operations have been going on in Trail for some time, and lead contamination has been a documented problem since 1975, when children were discovered to have elevated levels of lead in their blood. Lead in the soil and house dust were the main culprits, with young children—always licking their little grimy hands—the most at-risk group.

A few years ago, in light of this history of toxin exposure, the community formed a Health and Environment Committee and implemented a campaign to reduce local children’s exposure to lead. And the latest figures show promising changes.

Still, we'll probably bring our own water next time we visit.

Manitoba's HudBay emits more lead than any other mining opertation in Canada.

(Image: Flickr / Manitoba Historical Maps)

Flin Flon, Manitoba

It’s little wonder that there’s an awful lot of lead floating around Flin Flon, Manitoba: the city was built around a mine. Nearly 85 years later, little has changed: the city’s top employer is Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, and the local economy depends on zinc and copper mining. The Canadian company, called “HudBay” for short (“Like” them on Facebook here), has operations in North, Central and South America.

Environment Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) lists the HudBay operation in Flin Flon as emitting more lead into the environment than any other mining operation in Canada. In 2009, on-site releases totalled 84,516 kilograms—nearly double the amount produced by the second place eco-offender.

While the risk to human health is said to be low, Manitoba Health has recommended doing “a more comprehensive assessment” of the risk to residents, just to be sure.

Flipper babies are as common as hipsters in Brooklyn, New York.

(Image: Flickr / intersubjectiv)

Brooklyn, New York

The age of housing units in New York’s most populace borough, combined with the number of low-income families and the incidence of children living below the poverty line make for a high likelihood of lead exposure.

Scorecard, a website devoted to tracking pollution in the United States, reports that Brooklyn (also known as Kings County) has the greatest number of high-risk housing units in the country. Scorecard estimates that 130,000 homes—14 percent of the total homes in the area—are contaminated, and are exposing residents to lead. Of the families that occupy Kings County, 24 percent are low income, while a staggering 43 percent of children five years of age or younger live below the poverty line.

Old water pipes, pre-1950s building materials and peeling lead paint are the key culprits. The dangers are linked to the area’s endemic poverty and could likely be avoided if the old homes were brought up to code. But doing so requires subsidies and cooperation from the government.

Fort McMurray and "places to catch cancer" are quickly becoming

synonymous. (Image: Flickr / bulliver)

Fort McMurray, Alberta

It should come as little surprise to most readers to find a city so closely associated with Alberta’s dirty tar sands on our list. With major energy companies like Suncor, Syncrude, Shell Canada, ExxonMobil and Imperial Oil in town, Fort McMurray’s oil sands mines produced 322 tonnes of arsenic, 651 tonnes of lead and emitted large volumes of various other gross toxins into the environment last year.

While there is no consensus yet as to the full danger or health repercussions of extracting oil from the earth, Environment Canada has put together a crack team to monitor air, water, land and biodiversity in the area. They’ll use their findings to assess the potential environmental impacts of excavating large deposits of bitumen (heavy crude oil) from the Athabasca tar sands.

Actual deadliness, TBD.

St. Louis's Doe Run Company offers underground mine tour.

(Image: Flickr / Doe Run)

Iron County, Missouri

North America’s largest lead producer, Doe Run, is located in St. Louis, Missouri. Doe Run sources much of its lead ore from the “Lead Belt” in the southeast part of the state, the area where you’ll find Iron County.

The way the company puts it, their operation sounds really quite bucolic: The work “takes place far below the earth’s surface, some 1,000 feet beneath the forested hills of southern Missouri.” There’s probably a babbling brook somewhere nearby, too, and birds singing in the trees. You might even hear them—that is, if the drills weren’t working full-time, dredging from this one corner of the state approximately 70 percent of the USA’s primary lead supply.

The sheer volume of lead being extracted and processed in this state should be enough to keep visitors away for decades. Or it would be, if it weren't in proximity to the state's major tourism draw: a.k.a. any place Mark Twain dared dangle your toes.

Let’s just say we won’t be bringing home any samples to add to our rock collection from our next Missouri vacation.

Wildlife in the area needed to be stabilized and cleaned after the

Enbridge oil spill in Michigan. (Flickr / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services)

Marshall, Michigan

On July 26, 2010, a pipeline belonging to the Canadian oil giant Enbridge Energy ruptured in Michigan’s Talmadge Creek. The spill flowed into a larger body of water, the Kalamazoo River, near the township of Marshall.

Crude oil contains hundreds of toxic chemicals—including lead—which is why a burst pipeline poses such a threat to the people, animals and plants in the contaminated area.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Incident Management Team intercepted the worst of the spill 80 miles (128 kilometres) before it reached Lake Michigan. Up to 50 houses were evacuated, and residents of the area were advised not to drink water from the tap.

An estimated 819,000 oily gallons entered the Kalamazoo, and while much of the spill was contained, clean-up efforts are ongoing. The EPA has already done plenty of damage control, and has cleaned and returned oil-coated wildlife to the area (see the smiling cutie-pie turtle in the picture above).

This spring, the EPA will continue its efforts, focusing on the clean up of “submerged oil” bound up in river sediments in approximately 20 separate locations along the waterway. Enbridge, ever attentive to the environment, performs samples twice per week and reports any oil-related impacts on its website.

While the damage was contained, and the turtle seems pretty happy, the spill in Michigan doesn’t bode well for Western Canadians. Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Project proposes a twin pipeline (double the fun!) running from Edmonton, Alberta, to near Kitimat, BC. The project has already faced vehement opposition from local First Nations, and some environmentalists doubt entirely the viability of safely executing the project.

History reveals that humans tend to screw up over and over again, and rarely learn from our environmental blunders. If/when the pipeline goes ahead, we can only hope that Mother Earth is patiently storing another panacea—an oil-loving banana slug or auto-detoxifying sphagnum moss, for example—up her sleeve... somewhere near Kitimat.