Rhetoric 3266

« Human trafficking | Main | Student loan rates set to make highest one-year increase »

June 22, 2005

Toxic Traces

The article I selected for class on Monday June 20th was Toxic Traces from Minnesota Public Radio. This article was one out of a series MPR written about 3M and contaminated drinking water from their manufacturing of perfluoro chemicals that are used in Scotchgaurd and Teflon. This particular article was more a “primer” for the scientific background on the chemical and how it was developed. The article stated that these chemicals that 3M makes do not break down in the environment at all. In 2000 3M announced it would phase out the manufacturing of Scotchgaurd as a part of a voluntary responsible environmental management. Since the 1970a 3M had been doing internal monitoring and studies of the effects of these chemicals. 3M maintains the chemicals are safe but have found an ever-increasing amount of places where the chemicals have showed up. For example, one study found the chemicals in bald eagles in the Great Lakes region, river otters in the Northwest, turtles in the Southeast, polar bears in Alaska, and fish in the Pacific Ocean. The EPA had done a rat study with the chemicals and described the death of the rat pups as “unusual”. Wow, isn’t that comforting? One scientist at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency did a small study in 2002 to confirm the spread of the chemicals in the environment but later was rejected for funding studies to trace them back the 3M plant in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. Since 2000, the chemicals have shown up in drinking water in Cottage Grove and in Oakdale.

The group brought up a lot of interesting points about this article. Shannon said that he used to use Scotchgaurd on everything and spray it down in his basement. Hopefully he won’t be growing any extra arms anytime soon! Most of our group discussion was clarifying facts that were stated in the article. Since 3M was the only company to manufacture these chemicals until 2000, it is kind of scary to think how wide spread they are in the world that they can be found in fish in the Pacific Ocean. Hopefully this will lead to more environmental study of other chemicals used in industry in the future.