Public Comment

As to the herring, I have a different view. 

I believe they swam through a pocket of the cleanup chemicals that were dumped into the Sound (2-butoxyethanol).  They were bleeding through their scales, they were spiraling downward, and per other information, it appeared they had no bladders.  I think they were poisoned.  The MSDS says not to get 2-butoxyethanol in the streams, water, so you might want to reconsider this in your oil spill cleanup plans.  I did make comment on that, too.

Mainly I want to share, that after the oil spill the worst thing that happened was the cleanup chemicals that were used.

More important than the oil or gas Alaska has for the rest of the country, is the medical information of what happened to our people from the cleanup chemicals.

C₆H₁₄O₂/CH₃(CH₂)₂CH₂OCH₂CH₂OH 

A little understood aspect of the 2-butoxyethanol chemical is its second hand exposure.  Not only were the chemicals drug through Valdez to go to the beaches & for cleanup ... but also the workers would come back to Valdez, and go to our shops, etc.  Those that went to small offices like the tax offices, the barber shops, the bars, the chiropractor's office would affect the health of Valdez citizens.

Our chiropractor died of liver cancer, but before that he had melanoma eye cancer in 1992.  People would be getting rid of the chemical as best they could .... Vapors in one's respiration is the right exposure for another to get into their eyes.

Even those who didn't work directly with the chemical could have it blown into their eyes on the worksite.

 Steve Provant, AK DEC head in those days died of Chronic Lymphocydic Leukemia.  I've heard of that before, too - CLL

Just the things that our City Council members came down with were things like an odd leukemia, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer.

& other things have been showing up like Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma (also brain tumors, diabetes)

Elders Lost - Chenega Village from Kidney and Liver concerns.  Their village was close to a beach that was sprayed with Inipol.  Kidney and liver failure is not an everyday occurrence.

I believe we need accurate epidemiology information on the citizens of Valdez.  One man who did work on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and lived in Valdez for many years died one year after moving to Idaho.  He had lung, liver, bone and lymph cancers, but his cause of death will be registered in Idaho.

If people are successful in getting medical care they will likely be sent to Anchorage, or as a Native man I know of ... sent on to Seattle.  When they die there, their cause of death is registered there.

This chemical has been harming our Nation for decades.  It looks like the flu, but it is a chemical poisoning.  Something else always seems to get the blame for what 2-butoxyethanol does.

Valdez and the Native Villages around our State (as many came to work on the oil spill) can compile what has happened to their people since 1989.  Our Nation needs this information.

It looks just like 'gulf war syndrome' and it is on the list of the solvents/pesticides that the gulf war troops were exposed to.  It is both a solvent and a pesticide.

I just recognize the pattern of 2-butoxyethanol poisoning.  It seems to be the same thing as Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS)  My theory IS provable.  To find the fatigue you have to look at the red blood cells: are they small-sized?  And is there blood in urine?  For years this will be the case and it is as significant later as it was in the beginning. Later on when red blood cells are not being made in the bone marrow but using stem cells found elsewhere, there should be an abnormal peripheral blood result. Counts of red blood cells appear to be in normal range, and that's why doctors don't check more into it.  I believe by looking into the harm of 2-butoxyethanol extensively since May, 2002 that I have stumbled onto the fatigue of CFIDS & the primary chemical of harm in gulf war illness.

To conclude, I encourage you to reopen 'extended harm' not realized at time of Exxon's settlement.  There would be many more people alive and living in health had the cleanup chemicals never come to Valdez or the beaches or the Sound.

Our Nation needs this information - What happened to those who lived in Valdez from 1989 to the present & the same number of years prior to 1989?  Same for the Villages who sent workers to the cleanup.

I also think that you should reconsider dumping this poison into the Sound, or you may risk the entire fishing industry.

We are a chemically poisoned people

Why not Corexit?

Contact info:  Margaret Diann Hursh 907-835-3135 e-mail:  margaret.realhelp@gmail.com

PO Box 233, Valdez, AK 99686