Monitoring manganese

The highest average levels of airborne manganese over a three-month period were detected in Boaz and Vienna, W.Va., according to data recently released by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Manganese is produced by the Eramet Marietta plant along Ohio 7 south of Marietta. The facility is located directly across the Ohio River from Boaz.

There has been little research completed on the health effects of manganese, which is required at a low level in human bodies. Some studies have linked high levels to tremors or movement disorders in children.

In January, air monitoring equipment at Boaz registered a manganese level of 0.26 micrograms per cubic meter, dropping to 0.19 micrograms per cubic meter in February and 0.10 micrograms in March.

"This points to the fact that more people in West Virginia should be concerned and involved in efforts to clean up the air in the Ohio Valley," said Melissa English, program director with Ohio Citizen Action in Cincinnati.

She noted the 0.26 micrograms manganese level recorded at Boaz in January is more than five times the level deemed safe for continuous exposure by the federal government. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a tentative safe human health limit for continuous exposure of 0.05 micrograms of airborne manganese per cubic meter of air.

Stephanie Davis with the ATSDR Division of Health Studies in Atlanta said the EPA uses 0.05 micrograms per cubic meter as a reference guideline.

"But those figures are very conservative, and the studies they are based on were from occupational situations where workers are exposed to a much higher concentration," she said. "The more information we get, the better we can tell whether the guidelines currently set should be more or less strict."

She said a year's worth of monthly readings from four air monitoring stations in Boaz and Vienna, W.Va., along Blue Knob Road in the Harmar district and at the Washington County Career Center is currently being compiled into a health consultation report by ATSDR. The report will also include weather patterns, wind direction and other meteorological data that could influence manganese levels.

Once the health consultation report is completed, possibly this fall, Davis said ATSDR representatives will present their findings during a public meeting in Marietta.

The report is also a key step in determining whether ATSDR will conduct a full-blown health study in this area of the effects of manganese on humans.

"But at this time we don't want to draw too many conclusions from the month-to-month data from our air monitoring stations," Davis said. "We need a lot more information that will help us determine a yearly average."

English noted a separate study by the University of Cincinnati on the effect of manganese on 200 Ohio Valley children, ages 7 and 8, will begin in the next couple of months.

Eramet Marietta spokeswoman Joy Frank-Collins said the company had not reviewed the latest air monitoring data from ATSDR.

"But Eramet strives to remain in compliance with all federal, state and local guidelines for our emissions," she said. "And we are certainly interested in learning anything we can from air studies and the health consultation report.

"We're working hard to be a good neighbor in the valley and have recently put some improvements into our system, including renovations to our furnace 1 and we're adding a baghouse emissions abatement project that will reduce our overall emissions by 20 percent," Frank-Collins added.

She said that project will be completed in 2009.

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