[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Fireworks Leave Tons of Pollutants For Months

[Bill Totten]

by Marla Cone

Los Angeles Times (July 04 2008)


When the rockets and the bombs burst in the air tonight, spectators will
experience more than a spectacular show celebrating America's birthday.

When their blends of black powder, metals, oxidizers, fuels and other
toxic ingredients are ignited, traces wind up in the environment, often
spreading long distances and lasting for days, even months.

Although pyrotechnic experts are developing environmentally friendly
fireworks, Fourth of July revelers this year will be watching
essentially the same high-polluting technology that their grandparents
experienced decades ago.

Throughout the Los Angeles region, concentrations of fine particles, or
carbon soot, skyrocket for up to 24 hours after the Independence Day
shows, reaching levels as high as those from wildfires.

Public health officials warn that people with heart problems or
respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should avoid the smoky
celebrations, staying upwind or indoors.

"I enjoy a fireworks display as much as anyone else, but we do have
concerns about exposure to high levels of smoke and particles", said
Jean Ospital, health effects officer for the South Coast Air Quality
Management District.

Also, traces of poisonous metals, which give fireworks their bright
colors, and perchlorate, a hormone-altering substance used as an
oxidizer, trickle to the ground, contaminating waterways.

One Environmental Protection Agency study found that perchlorate levels
in an Oklahoma lake rose 1,000-fold after a fireworks display, and they
stayed high in some areas for up to eighty days.

European chemists Georg Steinhauser and Thomas Klapotke wrote in a
recent scientific journal that "several poisonous substances are known
to be released in the course of a pyrotechnic application" and that they
are dispersed over a large area.

"It is clear from a vast array of studies that traditional pyrotechnics
are a severe source of pollution", they wrote.

The black powder, or gunpowder, used in most fireworks has an extremely
high carbon content; when ignited, it fills the air with fine particles
capable of inflaming airways and lodging in lungs.

Every July 4 and 5, the Los Angeles region suffers "generally poor air
quality for particulates", said Philip Fine, the AQMD's atmospheric
measurements manager.

Particulates can cause coughing, sore throats and burning eyes. For
people with asthma or other respiratory or cardiovascular conditions,
the effects are much worse. Hospital admissions and deaths from asthma,
heart attacks and respiratory disease increase whenever particulate
levels rise.

In the areas around fireworks displays, particulate levels increase
about 100-fold and don't return to normal until around midday on July 5,
according to AQMD data.

During a fireworks show in Indio in 2004, particulate measurements
peaked at 847 micrograms per cubic meter of air, nearly six times the
federal health standard. Particulate readings are averaged over a
24-hour period, so that was not technically a federal violation.

Metals in the air also surge, although they do not exceed state health
guidelines. Nonetheless, they build up in waterways and soil.

Ironically, green-colored fireworks are the least "green" because the
metal that produces the color, barium, is highly poisonous.

Scientists in India found that airborne barium increased by a factor of
1,000 after a huge fireworks display there. Strontium, which creates
red, and copper, which forms a blue hue, can also be toxic.

"The use of heavy metals like barium or strontium should be reduced or,
if possible, avoided", said Karina Tarantik, a chemist at the University
of Munich in Germany whose lab is working on cleaner pyrotechnics.

Much of the new research has been propelled by concern over perchlorate,
which has been used since the 1930s to provide oxygen for pyrotechnic
explosions.

Perchlorate, which has contaminated many drinking water supplies from
military and aerospace operations, can impair the function of the
thyroid gland by blocking the intake of iodide. Fetuses are most at
risk, because thyroid hormones regulate their growth.

Scientists have made significant advances in low-smoke and
perchlorate-free technologies, prompted by the military, which uses
flares and other pyrotechnics, and by Walt Disney Company, which stages
about 2,000 fireworks displays a year.

In the late 1990s, Disney approached the Los Alamos National Laboratory
with a request to develop cleaner fireworks to reduce smoke at
Disneyland, which was prompting complaints to the AQMD from neighbors in
Anaheim.

Instead of carbon-based materials, scientists there experimented with
nitrogen atoms, which produced far less soot and smoke.

"In addition, because the high-nitrogen materials burn more cleanly, you
could use less coloring agents. We were able to get much nicer colors
with ... less metals", said David Chavez, a materials chemist at Los Alamos.

Based on those experiments, Los Alamos chemists Michael Hiskey and
Darren Naud took an entrepreneurial leave and founded DMD Systems.

Their fireworks use nitrocellulose, which is inexpensive and plentiful,
and they emit water, nitrogen and carbon dioxide instead of smoke and
perchlorate, Hiskey said. The metal content has been reduced by about
ninety percent, he said.

The cost is about the same as for other U.S.-manufactured fireworks.
Disney World in Florida has used his company's comets for about six months.

Disneyland developed aerial launchers that replaced black powder with
compressed air in 2004. The resort puts on more than 200 fireworks shows
each year, burning about 60,000 pounds of fireworks, far more than all
the other theme parks and stadiums in the region combined.

"Now we're on a path toward creating the next generation of fireworks",
said Disney Imagineering spokeswoman Marilyn Waters.

She said that other ultra-low-smoke and perchlorate-free technologies
are already used in some Disney shows in Anaheim, Florida and Hong Kong
and that an international team of vendors and scientists is testing more
innovations.

But municipalities and civic groups, which buy inexpensive fireworks
from China, can't afford the cleaner ones for their Independence Day
celebration. So far, they cost about ten times more than the
Chinese-made ones.

"Everything they get is from China", Hiskey said. "It's going to be very
difficult to break the China habit".

But John Conkling, an adjunct professor of chemistry at Washington
College in Maryland and former executive director of the American
Pyrotechnics Assocation, is confident that environmental concerns are
driving the industry.

"Certainly if we can replace perchlorates, the world will be a better
place", he said.

"I'm optimistic that we will have fireworks shows down the road with
much less perchlorate, if any, and we'll still have the spectacular
shows we've always had", Conkling said. "I expect even by next season
there will be less perchlorate in fireworks. Within a five- to ten-year
period, we'll see major, major changes."

In the meantime, Hiskey has some Fourth of July advice: Where there's
smoke, there are toxic substances.

"If I'm having trouble seeing things because it's so smoky, if the smoke
is headed toward the crowd, that really stinks", he said.

Copyright (c) 2008, KTLA

http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/ktla-fireworks-pollution,0,7367976.story


TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this
essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/