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High levels of cadmium found in fertilizers
Wednesday, May 24, 2000
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF
A Washington company's routine test of imported chemicals has sparked a nationwide search for fertilizer and animal feed components that may have been intentionally contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals.
RSA Microtech, a Seattle-based fertilizer manufacturer, detected the cadmium in March, when it tested a 132-ton shipment of zinc sulfate imported from China. That shipment went to a waste-disposal site.
A second 132-ton shipment was then intercepted at the Port of Seattle, where it remains in quarantine while authorities attempt to persuade the Chinese government to take it back.
The zinc sulfate is contaminated with high concentrations of cadmium, a toxic metal linked to lung cancer and kidney disease. RSA Microtech initially detected the cadmium during checks of commercial fertilizer that are required under a 1998 state law that limits the levels of heavy metals used in fertilizers.
RSA alerted state Department of Agriculture officials, and the contamination was traced to zinc sulfate imported by Ag-Chem in February.
The state agency issued a stop-sale order, and RSA Microtech asked its customers throughout the United States and Canada not to sell or use certain fertilizer products that might contain the cadmium.
The shipment in quarantine is in six containers at the Port of Seattle's Foreign Trade Zone off East Marginal Way. Port spokesman Doug Williams said the zone is a secure area.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched a nationwide search for other shipments.
The agency's enforcement officials are considering two possibilities: that the cadmium was accidentally included because of poor quality control in China or that somewhere in the production process, industrial wastes containing cadmium were deliberately added to agricultural products bound for export.
The contamination has raised concerns that workers might be exposed to the cadmium while producing agricultural products and that the poison might turn up in food.
Ted A. Troutman, a Portland attorney representing the importer, Ag-Chem Commission Co., of Cornelius, Ore., said experts have told the company that such high levels of cadmium couldn't be accidental.
It "would have had to have been an act of vandalism or an intentional act to dispose of an otherwise hazardous waste" by someone in China's Hunan Province, the source of the tainted chemical," Troutman said.
The zinc sulfate was guaranteed to contain no more than 10 parts per million of cadmium, the lawyer said, but was found to contain between between 20,000 and 110,000 ppm.
"Ever since we found out about the situation, we have been trying to put pressure on China to take the stuff back," Troutman said. He said Ag-Chem has been working through the U.S. State Department and Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., but with "no luck so far in having the stuff shipped out of the country."
In addition to the 132 tons that went to RSA Microtech, the 132 tons sitting at the Port of Seattle and another 44 tons in San Francisco, an additional 44 tons went to Idaho and an additional 44 tons to California, Troutman said.
EPA regional directors for the agency have been working with customs agents to notify other importers to test their shipments of zinc sulfate from China.
"Preliminary results of those inquiries reveals that as much as 1.3 million pounds entered the U.S. at 10 different ports since the first contaminated shipment was detected in November of 1999," EPA officials wrote in documents were provided to The New York Times by the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., that focuses on pesticides, fertilizers and other agricultural products. "With customs information we have identified 14 importers that have received shipments of suspect zinc sulfate."
The agency is checking the imported raw materials and products made from them, a process that should be done within two weeks.
Troutman said the material imported by Ag-Chem originated at two factories in Hunan province: China Hunan Changnin Songbai Chemical Factory and the China Hunan Hengnan Fuli Chemical Factory. He said it was exported by a provincial company, China Hunan Fireworks and Firecracker Co.
It is not the first time zinc sulfate contaminated with cadmium has come from China.
Renee Dagseth, an EPA official in Seattle, said that in 1998 an importer in Mississippi detected cadmium in zinc sulfate that was to be used in animal feed. The company has been unable to send it back to China.
P-I reporter Neil Modie contributed to this report.
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