For example, here in the block group 1 neighborhood in the mid-90s, we found one death by suicide for about every 230 people during the worst 12-month period, versus an average of one death by suicide for every 8,621 people in the rest of North Carolina, Weisler said. When we saw this data it gave us pause.
Weisler said of hydrogen sulfide, The odor was frequently apparent when I lived there as a child and later when I visited my mother, who lived in the neighborhood from 1962 until her death in 2001.
That year (2001), the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) estimated the average maximum hydrogen sulfide level in a large part of the affected area at 215 parts per billion (pbb), while some sections of the neighborhoods were reported as low as 30 ppb. Moreover, based on their own air modeling study, the NCDENR estimated that historical releases of hydrogen sulfide reached average maximum levels of 860 ppb in a few residences very near the asphalt facilities.
By comparison, the World Health Organization has a 10-minute exposure standard of five ppb. The California one-hour standard is 30 ppb. The newly revised, but not yet implemented, North Carolina 24-hour hydrogen sulfide standard is 86.2 ppb.
These exposures accompanied 574 formal complaints to the City of Salisbury from March 11, 1999, to Oct. 15, 2004, for noxious odors and associated respiratory problems, which are still occurring though at a reduced rate said Weisler.
In addition to suggestions of an increased suicide rate, the incidence rate of primary brain cancer
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Contact: L.H. Lang
llang@med.unc.edu
919-843-9687
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
10-Dec-2004