Aphalt Plant Update IV; Poisoning by Columbia Fruit Packing in Wenatchee

It is possible that the asphalt that Basin was producing all hours was for Selland Construction, which is the contractor for a road reconstruction project nearby, on Badger Mountain Road in East Wenatchee. The project is worth 6.5 million dollars. http://www.wenworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070912/NEWS04/709120337

I have seen Selland trucks going to and from the road to Basin Asphalt. I've also seen Central Washington trucks but they have a different business there near Basin. The Badger Mountain Road project has been going on for 2 years and is wrapping up--they've recently finished the asphalt work. Last Tuesday. I called the Department of Ecology on Monday or Tuesday and the fumes at night ceased recently.

My guess is that they were already done. They're getting ready to put the scavenging system in AFTER all work was completed, and they just kept running the plant after bags blew. The smog was so thick it could be seen from downtown Wenatchee, but they didn't shut down, they wanted to finish their project so they kept running all day. And that plant HAS been running at night.

Ecology was just allowing these guys to operate without being in compliance, and I'm starting to wonder if the county knew they were running at night. I think I'm right--this was about money.

Another item of note is the Columbia cherry packing plant incident that happened almost a couple of months ago. People were sick after working at the plant early one morning, and some of the sick went to the hospital and medical clinics complaining of "nausea" and shortening of breath, according to the health officials. See http://www.wenworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070908/NEWS04/709090420

What is not mentioned, is that some workers were also vomiting blood. It seems characteristic of health officials to minimize an incident where politics may be concerned. Most of the people going in the medical centers and hospital were poor and/or minority workers. I heard about the incident second-hand from a personal friend whose good friend was affected. My friend told me her friend went to the hospital with others who were or had been vomiting blood and they all believed they had been poisoned. They asked the hospital for blood tests, to be able to prove the poisoning. Central Washington Hospital REFUSED to do blood tests.

The woman told her friend, MY friend, that she believed the hospital was trying to cover for the business and didn't want to collect documentation or evidence of poisoning. Several people asked for blood tests. All were refused.

Not only could tests have been performed to show poisoning, if the hospital had not performed the tests themselves, they would have known that collecting blood could have been evidence because the blood could be later analyzed.

L&I ended up fining the business $1,500 but it may have been more if a specific chemical had been confirmed in blood samples.

I recently had some questions and spoke with a pesticide poisioning hotline. The gentleman told me there are blood tests that can be performed which identify enzymes and poisons, and that medical facilities in a known agricultural area would be aware of this and should use them whenever poisoning was suspected.

Columbia Fruit Packing is not the only business that should have been investigated. The response of the hospital should be investigated as well, and in my opinion, they should also be fined.