RECENT THOUGHTS |
Denver's Dead DucksOFFICIALS STILL DUCKING THE ISSUEAS DUCK DEATHS CONTINUE IN DENVER Updated: October 2007 Adrienne Anderson For many months, ducks have been dying in Denver. Many hundreds of ducks were found dead and dying in the past winter at Metro Wastewater's sewage plant ponds. Various public agency officials termed the mass bird die-off a "mystery," though no test results were ever released to the public about what contaminants were in the gooey substance wildlife rehabilitation workers observed coating the ducks' feathers destripping them of their natural oils and causing them to drown. To this date, Metro Wastewater and Colorado Division of Wildlife officials have kept mum about these ducks' deaths, despite claims such chemical analyses would be conducted on the duck carcasses and made public. In fact, Metro Wastewater has sought to obstruct review of public records about the duck die-offs by RMPJC's Nuclear Nexus Project. In a response to one request, the sewage agency claimed it would take their staff 121 hours to pull the files from the shelf regarding Lowry Landfill's discharge permit and any documents related to the dead ducks, and that RMPJC would have to pre-pay to Metro Wastewater $1,815 before they would produce a single record. Also, they indicated that for any copies of documents requested, they would charge $1.00/page, an amount our times higher than the state-mandated cap of $0.25/page and charged by other agencies in recent records reviews. Over the Labor Day weekend and subsequent weeks, scores of additional dead and dying ducks were found at Denver's City Park 's Ferril Lake, to the great distress of surrounding residents and others who frequent the park. What's going on? The Nuclear Nexus Project of the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center - whose leaders have worked for decades to protect the public from exposures to some of the worst toxic and nuclear environmental hazards in this region - has been investigating and has disclosed unreported facts and issuing calls for action by city, state and federal officials responsible for environmental protection, wildlife and public health. At a news conference held on Saturday, September 8th at the Pavilion at City Park overlooking Ferril Lake, the Nuclear Nexus and supporters gathered to announce our findings an calls for action over the dead ducks and poor water quality conditions in the lakes which may be associated with the occurrences. As the media looked on, yet another duck died in the lake just a few yards away from where we held our new conference, but out of reach for rescue. No officials were monitoring the lake for rescue of any ducks continuing to succomb to adverse conditions in the lake. The duck, as RMPJC founder Dr. LeRoy Moore reported to KGNU Radio as he observed it, ducked his head under water, weakly raising it twice to shake off the water, and then dropping its head again underwater, not to come up again. Within a minute or so, the duck's tail rose to the surface and began to float toward shoreline.  The water was observed to be a dense, murky green color, though the lake had only recently been filled after a multi-million dollar project to drain it, haul off tons of the lakebed sludge, line the bottom, and refill it with water from the Metro Wastewater/Denver Water so-called "recycled water" project. Disclosed at the news conference was information about the switch in the source of water to the lake that was done in 2004, changing the water from potable drinking drinking water to non-potable sewage effluent water, subject to only partial treatment by Denver Water. In public, officials have failed to disclose the decline in lake water quality, though in Denver agency records reviewed, it is acknowledged that the switch to the partially treated sewage effluent - laced with Lowry Landfill toxic and radioactive discharges pumped to the sewage treatment plant in a controversial, nationally precedent-setting permit were issued by Adrienne Anderson, Coordinator of the Nuclear Nexus Project which has been investigating the ducks deaths in Denver over the last six months, LeRoy Moore, PhD., a founder of RMPJC, and Ron Forthofer, PhD. a retired biostatistician from the University of Texas School of Public Health. While RMPJC had invited Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper to attend, his office replied that he would be unavailable, due to a schedule conflict. All Denver City Councilpersons were also invited, yet none attended, or have replied, to date, about the issue. RMPJC is urging that Metro Wastewater's permit to flush the Lowry Landfill's hazardous and radioactive water permit be revoked, a source of poisons mixed with sewage effluent which is currently being discharged to a Denver Water facility only partially able to treat wastes to a non-drinkable level, and then routed to fill the City Park Lakes. Apparently, the ducks - as Dr. Ron Forthofer has cautioned - haven't been told not to drink the water in the City Park lakes. RMPJC has also asked for additional actions, see the statements cited within. RMPJC's Saturday news conference at City park was covered by Fox31 News, KOA Radio and KGNU Radio. Botulism, a deadly bacteria, has been stated by agency officials to be the likely cause of the duck deaths. While no test results have been produced to confirm that, RMPJC does not disagree that botulism could in fact be flourishing in the lakewater where non-potable, recycled sewage effluent subsequent to only partial treatment is being used to fill the lakes. RMPJC's Nuclear Nexus Project has found from our research that in numerous occurrences of mass bird die-offs around the world, scientists have attribute the avian deathsfrom botulism to their exposure to sewage contaminated water, where such organisms can thrive. In the Denver lakes at issue, the addition of toxic and even radioactive elements to otherwise degraded water quality documented since the city began using the sewage effluent to fill the lakes in City Park and also Washington Park does not inspire confidence that the continuing bird die-offs are a natural phenomenon. Note: Listen to the audio file of the September 10th KGNU news report by journalist Claudia Cragg about public officials passing the buck over the ducks. While listening, we'd like to point out that one speaker at Saturday's news conference was incorrectly identified, Joan Jacobsen. Jacobsen, a member of the Citizen Advisory Board of the Lockheed Martin/US Air Force Superfund site, which works to oversee actions related to the clean-up of the site. Jacobsen noted that wastes from the site, in addition to contaminating the site in Jefferson County and downstream municipal water suppplies for many years, were also being dumped by Martin Marietta at the Lowry Landfill, and could be among the contaminants post-treatment adversely impacting water quality in the metro sewage effluent being diverted around the city, including the City Park Lakes, among other contaminants of concern. For background about the highly radioactive Lowry Landfill, see the three part series, "Dirty Secrets," by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, Eileen Welsome, which was published by Westword in April-May 2001. The series included "The Lowdown on Lowry," "A Matter of Trust ," and "Board Games ." All of these fact-filled stories have been provided to current officials of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's Environmental Health Division, who are responsible for handling the issue of duck deaths in Denver's City Park lake. NEW: Also see a short video about Denver's dead ducks by Gerald Trumbule, a resident of the west City Park neighborhood, on his website Denver Direct TV. For more information, contact: Adrienne Anderson, Coordinator, The Nuclear Nexus Project of RMPJC, adrienne@rmpjc.org LeRoy Moore, Ph.D. leroy@rmpjc.org Ron Forthofer, Ph.D. rforthofer@comcast.net
|
RMPJC's EVENTS |
