FDA to the Rescue : Santa Clara I Arsenic Spill, Chernobyl Explosion

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

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Santa Clara I Arsenic Spill

Though some of the emergency situations FDA has been involved in are well known, others have received little publicity, possibly because the agency helped head off a disaster.

For example, a large Panamanian ship, the Santa Clara I, got caught in a fierce coastal Atlantic storm Jan. 3, 1992, 30 miles off Cape May, N.J. Part of the vessel?s cargo, a poisonous chemical, washed overboard during the storm into a major shellfishing area.

The vessel was transporting tractor-trailer-sized containers of arsenic trioxide from New York City to Baltimore by way of the Delaware Bay. Arsenic trioxide is extremely poisonous. It is used to manufacture glass, enamel and weedkiller; as a rodent and insect killer; and for preserving animal hides.

Four of the large containers, each holding 108 25-gallon drums of arsenic, washed overboard in the storm-tossed waters.

After several days of searching, the U.S. Coast Guard, using a helicopter with sonar, located three containers in waters 120 feet deep. The Coast Guard searched a 68-square-mile area before giving up on the fourth container?it was not found.

Some of the 25-gallon drums had imploded because of the water pressure, releasing small amounts of arsenic into the ocean, according to Dominic Castronovo, one of FDA?s four Newark, N.J., district investigators who handled the case.

A three-square-mile area surrounding where the containers were found was closed to commercial fishing May 15. Commercial fishing resumed Aug. 11, 1992.

Because this form of arsenic dissolves slowly in cold water, the leaking containers posed no immediate danger to swimmers or consumers. However, it was theoretically possible for the chemicals to contaminate area clam, oyster and scallop beds as well as other marine life such as shrimp, crabs and fish. This made FDA?s inspection of seafood caught in the area urgent.

Before the cleanup even began, Castronovo worked with FDA?s Office of Seafood, the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, and the New Jersey Department of Health to determine if the chemicals posed any threat to consumer seafood products.

To make sure no contaminated seafood had already found its way into stores, Castronovo spoke with many Cape May shellfish harvesters to find out where they had fished after the accident.

The team also collected 17 boxes, each containing 22 samples, of ocean quahogs (large clams used in chowder), scallops, and surf clams harvested in the wreckage area and tested them for arsenic. None was found.

Castronovo says the Coast Guard and a salvage company cleaned up the spill using remotely operated equipment. ?They used robots to put the 25-gallon drums into larger 55-gallon drums and pump marine cement around them. This stabilized the small drums so they could be brought to the surface? without further contamination.

Three Mile Island Scare

When Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear reactor came perilously close to complete meltdown March 28, 1979, FDA immediately began sampling milk, fish and water within a 20-mile radius of the facility near Harrisburg, Pa.

Swanson's office worked closely with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Pennsylvania state and local agencies. Those agencies evaluated the threat and potential harm to area residents.

FDA's investigators from Philadelphia, Baltimore and Harrisburg, Pa., collected more than 500 samples from area dairy farms, food processing plants, grocery stores, the Susquehanna River, and other locations during the first 12 days of the emergency. The samples were tested at Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center, Winchester, Mass. Most samples showed no detectable radiation. Only minute traces of radioactive iodine-131 and cesium-137 were found in some milk samples, but FDA determined the levels posed no threat to public health.

Describing the time as "near chaos," W. Remle Grove, chief of FDA?s Emergency Operations Branch, says, "We had people from what was then the Bureau of Drugs scurrying around trying to find possible sources of potassium iodide to manufacture, package, and be made available for the states and consumers." (Potassium iodide is a drug that prevents the accumulation of radioactive iodine in the thyroid gland.) The staff of what was then the Bureau of Radiological Health helped interpret data and assess the risks associated with radioactive releases from the facility. The bureau also distributed radiation monitoring devices to complement the sampling by other agencies.

"It was a massive effort to coordinate with our district offices, state officials, other government agencies," Grove says.

The agency also inspected proposed relocation sites in case there was a need to evacuate a million and a half people from Philadelphia, Swanson says.

FDA has had emergency procedures to deal with nuclear disasters in place since the 1940s. Three Mile Island gave the agency the opportunity to test those procedures.

"Three Mile Island didn?t contaminate anything outside of the reactor building," Swanson says, "but it sure had the potential."

Chernobyl Explosion

Sometimes disasters occurring outside the United States call for an FDA response.

After the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear facility exploded on April 26, 1986, FDA, upon learning of the disaster, notified more than 1,000 agency employees to increase imported food inspections. These measures were necessary to protect Americans from foods contaminated by radiation.

FDA and USDA set levels of allowable radioactivity in imports from the area. FDA investigators began testing all imports from 13 European and Asian countries.

Most imports were found to be well below allowable levels, but some foods, primarily soft cheeses and some other dairy products, were refused entry because they had higher than allowable levels of radioactive contaminants.

In addition, FDA investigators increased the frequency of sampling U.S.-grown food for radioactivity, while EPA sampled milk and water.

There was only minimal radiation increase in U.S. air, water and food after the radiation cloud reached North America, nine days after the explosion. The minimal increase was due, primarily, to the cloud?s dispersal throughout the Western Hemisphere as well as decay of many of the radioactive chemicals.

FDA surveillance showed that all radiation levels in U.S. food products were well below FDA's action levels and posed no threat to American people.

About the Author

www.fda.gov
FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.