Heavy Metal Toxicity: Danger to Human Health
Northport, Washington
Heavy Metal ToxicityThe Northport Project is an environmental and community health advocacy group dedicated to informing current and former residents of Northport, WA, about past studies conducted by Teck, under EPA oversight, due to an agreement made in 2006. We also inform residents about studies conducted by the EPA, Washington State Department of Ecology, and Washington Department of Health before the 2006 agreement. Additionally, we keep them updated on the current remedial investigation and feasibility studies now being carried out by the EPA, since the Upper Columbia River area was designated a Superfund site.
The Northport Project is committed to giving community members a voice. They have conducted health surveys of past and present residents and share the findings of reported health clusters with university researchers and epidemiologists to promote in-depth studies linking environmental hazards to community health issues. We work closely with Citizens for a Clean Columbia (CCC), who collaborate with the EPA and Ecology to review documents and reports, providing community input, including concerns and documented health problems shared by the Northport Project.
By documenting health issues and advocating for accountability, we aim to ensure Teck is held responsible for their gross negligence. For more than fifty years, Teck polluted the Columbia River by dumping 450 tons of heavy metal toxins (slag) every day, while pumping additional toxins into the air through smokestacks deliberately built 409 feet high to disperse the pollution away from Trail, British Columbia. Those emissions were carried downwind and became trapped in the Upper Columbia River Valley, contaminating Northport and beyond. Teck knew exactly what they were doing—knowingly sacrificing the river, the environment, and the health of entire communities along the Columbia for generations. Their actions are not only unforgivable but also criminal.
Teck Smelter dismissed the probability of the impact their decades of pollution could have, claiming it would only affect an “insignificant” number of people due to Northport, WA’s small population. This slideshow is a glimpse into the lives they deemed unworthy of concern—lives forever changed by Teck’s decision to prioritize profits over people.
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Hi Northportproject,
Very interesting, Be it drugs, auto exhaust, pesticides, dioxins, heavy metals, chemicals, etc…… Is there anyway to know if these chemicals are being introduced into your bloodstream, wherein courtesy of circulation, are being distributed into the body’s organs, when exposure occurs? Would you pass out before any damage is done?
I realize that there are two types of exposure… acute, and chronic. Acute is when a transient effect is generated by a singular, yet strong exposure to a substance. With chronic toxicity, you can be in the environment for years before any real symptoms manifest, because the poisoning is very slow.
As far as acute toxicity goes, unless you develop a substantial migraine, vomit, or pass out, does this mean that something has had no effect on the body, and even if some inhalation has occurred, it’s completely negligible and the body is equipped to discard itself of the chemicals with no repurcussions? Not a single brain cell lost?
I look forward to your next post
Great comment! Our bodies are amazing at taking care of themselves. Unfortunately, that is the root of the many illnesses and diseases caused by chronic exposure, (mostly inhalation in this particular situation),to heavy metal toxins. They are all auto immune related issues. Our immune system goes after all the toxins that enter into our body, daily, weekly, yearly ……most with long half lives of a minimum of sixteen years, meaning half of the first dose you ingested won’t start to leave your body for at least sixteen years….tack on 30 to 40 more years, 365 days a year, to that and it is easy to see why eventually our immune system has exhausted the tissue, joints and organs in our bodies, causing inflammation, arthritis and cancers to name only a few. In the process the heavy metals are destroying your future children’s health by reeking havoc on cells, destroying and mutating some that alter the genetics passed along in many. If anyone reads the health results we received back, spanning three generations of past and present Northport residents, (and most of the third generation having never lived there at al),, a timeline, an example or even a missed opportunity for real fact finding research , is immediately and undeniably evident.
Yet more of the same research on the environment just keeps getting retested, yet no one at the Dpt of Ecology can explain why Northport no longer even has one air monitor closer than 30 miles away.
Thanks for following the blog and commenting!
Jamie
Oh my Gosh!The toxins Antimony and Cadmium would explain my GRANULOMA in my lungs and the toxins Copper, Mercury, Uranium, Lead, Nickel and Cadmium would explain Heidi’s deformed, non-functioning kidney, being born without a lining in her bladder as well as her Addison’s disease.