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LOUIS, Mich. - Jim Hall was mowing the town's baseball diamond when he felt a little bump beneath him. Just last week, he discovered one other one. Hall, who has lived on this mid-Michigan city of 7,000 for 50 years. After residents complained for years about useless birds of their yards, 22 American robins, six European starlings and one bluebird have been collected for testing. The results, revealed final week: The neighborhood's songbirds are being poisoned by DDT, a pesticide that was banned in the United States more than 40 years ago. Lethal concentrations had been discovered in the birds' brains, in addition to within the worms they eat. Matt Zwiernik, a Michigan State University assistant professor of environmental toxicology who led the testing. The birds' brains contained concentrations of DDE, a breakdown product of DDT, from 155 to 1,043 parts per million, with a median of 552. "Thirty within the brain is the threshold for acute demise," Zwiernik said.

Twelve of the 29 birds had brain lesions or liver abnormalities. The wrongdoer is a toxic mess left behind by Velsicol Chemical Corp., previously Michigan Chemical, which manufactured pesticides till 1963, a yr after Rachel Carson's e book Silent Spring uncovered the hazards of DDT, especially for birds. Populations of bald eagles and different birds crashed when DDT thinned their eggs, killing their embryos. The nine-block neighborhood has turn into an actual-life example of Carson's "Fable for Tomorrow" in Silent Spring. Velsicol is notorious for one of many worst chemical disasters in U.S. In 1973 a flame retardant compound they manufactured - polybrominated biphenyls, or PBBs - was blended up with a cattle feed complement, https://www.neurosurges.net which led to widespread contamination in Michigan. Thousands of cattle and other livestock were poisoned, about 500 farms were quarantined and people throughout Michigan had been exposed to a chemical linked to most cancers, reproduction issues and endocrine disruption. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took management of the positioning in 1982 and the plant was demolished within the mid-nineties, abandoning three Superfund sites in the 3.5-square mile town.

EPA officials didn't reply to repeated requests for touch upon the poisoned birds and the Superfund cleanup. Of most concern is the 54-acre site that once contained Velsicol's most important plant, which backs as much as the neighborhood the place residents have discovered lifeless birds on their lawns. Ed Lorenz, www.koha-community.cz a professor at nearby Alma College and vice chair of the Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force, which represents the community. Hall is the chair of the duty force. While there is an extended-time period health examine for residents who had been uncovered to PBBs, no one is monitoring their exposure to DDT or searching for attainable human health results. Elsewhere, traces of the pesticide have been linked in some human studies to reproductive problems, including decreased fertility and altered sperm counts. St. Louis City Manager Robert McConkie. The city's median household revenue is 43 p.c lower than the state's. About 22 % of its households stay beneath the poverty line. The birds apparently have been poisoned by eating worms living in contaminated soil close to the outdated chemical plant.

No studies have been conducted to see whether or not the DDT has contaminated any vegetables or fruits grown in yards. Jane Keon, secretary of the duty force, said the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality ignored their complaints about dead birds for years. But Dan Rockafellow, the state agency's undertaking manager for the location, stated it took time to gather sufficient bird samples to check. State officials did not begin testing individuals's yards till 2006, after they discovered several yards extremely contaminated with DDT and PBBs. EPA contractors now are cleansing up 59 yards. Next 12 months the agency plans on adding one other 37 yards exterior of the nine-block space. Most of the contamination is in the highest six inches of the soil, in all probability from the chemicals drifting over from the plant, Rockafellow stated. However, some yards have DDT and PBBs deeper within the soil, which might be resulting from Velsicol's supply of free fill dirt to their neighbors decades ago.