[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Fwd: The Plume Across the River

Tue Dec 9 09:14:27 PST 2025

 Thanks for forwarding this article, Jim.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree . . .
Regarding a second source of pollution in the St. Louis area, Bruce Lanphear was instrumental in working with our group in St. Louis by meeting with us regarding with his research re lead contamination and his article in the New England Journal of Medicine stating that there are NO safe blood lead levels, at a time when the WHO's standard for safe blood lead levels was 10mg/dl.  Getting this word out directly helped us address egregious lead contamination in the St. Louis region (and beyond) caused by the largest lead smelter in the US in Herculaneum, MO, operated by Doe Run, a St. Louis, company, a subsidiary of Renco Group, Inc., NYC. This gave us a plumb line to talk about the contamination in the soil, air, water, vegetation, and in peoples' bodies.  The information then became leverage for addressing the same issue in the Andean city of La Oroya, Peru, where Doe Run also had an antiquated polluting smelter that had the same effects on the people and the whole ecological system--the breadbasket of Peru, from which some of our vegetables are imported.  The Herculaneum smelter was eventually closed because it couldn't comply with EPA's ambient air standards.  The smelter in La Oroya, which was never in compliance with its environmental agreement (PAMA) with the Peru Government), closed when the company declared bankruptcy during the 2009 economic downturn.  After a number of years, it partially re-opened under the management of some of the employees and continues to pollute the area.  But now the residents know the truth about the harm of lead contamination.  The Peru Govt finally passed a law to provide healthcare to those affected, but changes in government leadership have slowed the process of implementing this.
So, thanks to Fred and Bruce for their work and impact on making St. Louis and other places healthier places to live, and work and enjoy life.
BTW, a third arena of contamination in St. Louis (and some other cities) was contamination caused by post-World War II radio-active waste dumped there after the making of the atomic bombs, polluting the land and rivers and people.  During the cold war, some parts of St. Louis were also test sites for spraying the nuclear waste on large apartment complexes (similar to Leningrad), to see what the effects would be.  People were told the area was being sprayed for mosquitos.  Many who lived in these areas were among the poor and are dealing with or have died from cancer and other diseases and maladies.  The person who most recently did research on this, blew the whistle, and wrote a book on it, Behind the Fog, was Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor, a colleague formerly from St. Louis, who also worked with us on the lead issues and met with Bruce when he met with us in St. Louis.
And now the EPA has become a hollow shell of its former self, and scientists, environmental watchdogs, and researchers have been fired from this administration.  It is up to us now to continue to be alert, watchful, and respond to the continuing impact of climate change and ecological degradation which is affecting all of us--locally and globally.  
Ellie Stockelliestock at aol.com 
    On Tuesday, December 9, 2025 at 08:51:08 AM EST, James Wiegel via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:   

 Bruce Lanphear writes about Fred.
Jim Wiegel

“…the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come and let us talk“. 

The Sunflowers. Mary Oliver

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bruce Lanphear from Plagues, Pollution & Poverty" <blanphear at substack.com>
Date: December 9, 2025 at 5:06:26 AM MST
To: jfwiegel at yahoo.com
Subject: The Plume Across the River
Reply-To: "Bruce Lanphear from Plagues, Pollution & Poverty" <reply+2zpexy&11sdvl&&fe0fcb94db32bcf96d49285cb2e44ca301146da7817fbd1528c93a45b498e15e at mg1.substack.com>

A faint chemical trail, a damaged landscape, and the mystery St. Louis overlooked͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     ͏     
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The Plume Across the River

A faint chemical trail, a damaged landscape, and the mystery St. Louis overlooked

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| Bruce Lanphear |

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The Gingko’s Cry

Walking through St. Louis neighborhoods in the spring of 1969, a curious plant scientist noticed something uncanny: whole blocks of plants looked stricken. Leaves curled like closing hands, stems twisted, and redbuds and forsythias seemed frozen mid-grimace. This wasn’t random city stress. It looked directional—like a signal, or a warning.

What startled him most was the ginkgo—a tree with a 200-million-year lineage and a reputation for surviving pollution, pests, and almost anything a city can throw at it—showing clear signs of injury.

The curious scientist was my father, Fred Lanphear. Fred had trained as a horticulturist at Penn State in the 1950s, back when the reigning philosophy was simple: if nature misbehaves or isn’t productive enough, bring out the chemicals. Then Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, and that tidy worldview began to wobble. By the time he took a sabbatical at Washington University in 1968, he was already suspicious of the idea that we could “manage” nature with synthetics and good intentions.

Christian Elliott’s recent essay, Field Reporting in Your Own Backyard, brought me back to the study my father conducted in St. Louis that year. Their stories, told half a century apart, reveal the same unsettling truth: we know far too little—yet more than enough to see that we are failing to protect people from these poisonous plumes.

Following a Toxic Trail No Air Monitor Could Detect

Fred worked with Oscar Soule to survey the damage and reproduce it in the laboratory. Their study, Injury to City Plants from Industrial Emissions of Herbicides, documented widespread damage from airborne herbicides—mainly 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. But this wasn’t agricultural drift. It was industrial emissions drifting invisibly into St. Louis neighborhoods.

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They mapped the injury across the city, and a pattern emerged: the damage weakened with distance but lined up along a narrow axis. When they overlaid wind patterns, the source snapped into focus—the Monsanto plant on the other side of the Mississippi River. The city’s trees and shrubs had drawn a botanical bullseye around the facility.

They showed that at least seven herbicide byproducts from manufacturing could reproduce the same injuries at concentrations as low as 1 ppm. The isobutyl ester of 2,4-D—especially as a vapor—was the standout culprit. In greenhouse tests, even plants on upper floors above the exposure chamber wilted. The chemicals didn’t need a direct hit; they simply drifted upward, outward, everywhere.

Lanphear and Soule emphasized a point that still feels ahead of its time: plants can be better early-warning systems than machines. Air monitors track familiar pollutants like sulfur dioxide, but substantial hazards from the unmonitored, site-specific chemicals no one thinks to measure could be wreaking havoc. The ecological evidence was unmistakable. The human evidence? Missing.

That’s where the story starts to darken. We still don’t know how long those emissions drifted across St. Louis, how far they traveled, or what the long-term health consequences may have been. Lanphear and Soule cited a study showing that 2,4-D was fetocidal and teratogenic in rats at higher concentrations—evidence that should have prompted studies of preterm birth or birth defects in the affected neighborhoods. But no one looked. 

What Happens When the First Clues Are Ignored

The data trail ends just where the questions begin, leaving us with a toxic plume that plants could read perfectly—and a human story that science never bothered to write.

And this early warning wasn’t a harmless curiosity. In the decades since, stronger evidence has emerged showing that people—especially pregnant women and young children—showed their own forms of distress, as unmistakable as the curled leaves and contorted branches that marked the plume’s path. 

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A large population-based study from California’s agricultural regions found that infants exposed in utero because their mothers lived near pesticide-sprayed fields had a higher risk of being born prematurely.

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A statewide case-control study found that children who were exposed in utero—because their mothers lived near fields sprayed with pesticides—had a higher risk of autism. 

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A Danish national cohort study found that children exposed in utero because their mothers lived near agricultural fields had a higher risk of childhood leukemia and central nervous system tumors.

These aren’t subtle; they trace a consistent arc from small, routine exposures to life-altering consequences.

The Pattern Becomes Hard to Ignore

Seen together, the pattern becomes hard to ignore. Plants told us early and clearly that synthetic pesticides drift far, linger long, and rearrange living systems in ways we barely understand. But we treated their distress as a botanical curiosity rather than a public health warning.

Sometimes the biggest mysteries aren’t buried in archives. They’re floating in the air, right where no one thought to look. And for too long, we’ve ignored what the plants were trying to tell us.

This work exists because of readers like you. Paid subscriptions let me keep it independent, ad-free and unafraid to take on powerful interests. If you find value here, consider joining as a supporter—it makes all the difference.
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© 2025 Bruce Lanphear
917 12th St, Bellingham, WA 98225 
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