vvEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Exploratory
Research
Washington DC 20460
Research and Development
EPA-600/S9-82-011 Oct. 1982
Project Summary
Nineteenth Century Technology-
Twentieth Century Problems:
A Retrospective
Mini-Assessment
Vary T. Coates, Thecla Fabian, and Margaret McDonald
The systematic attempt to antici-
pate future environmental problems
has usually been associated with the
assessment of new or emerging
technologies. In recent years, how-
ever, it has become clear that environ-
mental problems may suddenly come
to light, stemming from aging or
obsolescent technological systems, or
from industrial practices that have
already been discounted or superseded
by improved methods.
This retrospective mini-assessment
of nineteenth-century technology has
identified industrial and urban tech-
nologies of the pre-World War I era
which may be the sources of present-
day environmental problems or threats
to public health and safety. Four case
studies were given particular attention
in the assessment: (1) arsenic, which
was used widely in a number of
industries during the last century; (2)
coal, which is being reintroduced as a
major energy source; (3) iron and
steel, the major heavy industries of the
nineteenth-century; and (4) old dams,
which potentially contain hazardous
materials in the trapped sediments.
This Project Summary was devel-
oped by EPA's Office of Exploratory
Research, Washington. DC, to an-
nounce key findings of the research
project that is fully documented in a
separate report of the same title (see
Project Report ordering information at
back).
Introduction
The systematic attempt to anticipate
future environmental problems has
usually been associated with the
assessment of new or emerging tech-
nologies. In recent years, however, it
has become clear that environmental
problems may suddenly come to light,
stemming from aging or obsolescent
technological systems, or from industrial
practices that have already been dis-
counted or superseded by improved
methods. Examples of such problems
are subsidence or acid drainage from
abandoned mines, unsafe bridges,
leaking waste depositories, and eroded
earthen dams.
The nineteenth-century was the
period when burgeoning technology
and industry transformed America from
an agrarian, developing country to an
industrial, urbanized nation. In 1800,
only 6 percent of the U.S. population
lived in urban areas; by 1900, the figure
had grown to 40 percent, and two
decades later the 50-percent mark had
been passed.
Industries that have spanned the last
100 years are now subjected to environ-
mental, health, and safety regulations
that did not exist in their early days.
Some of the residues of earlier, unregu-
lated practices, such as dumping
wastes on the site or inflowing streams,
have never been cleaned up. Some of
the materials that were freely used in
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consumer products or in construction
are now (and in some cases, were even
then) known to be hazardous. These
materials may exist today in items that
are still used or that are collected, in
buildings that are used or uninhabited;
and in materials in "latent storage"
(dust and debris in abandoned buildings,
refuse piles and pits, or built-up
sediments at the bottom of bodies of
water).
The residual contaminants from the
last century are undoubtedly dwarfed by
the detrimental by-products of the
chemical revolution in American in-
dustry during and after the Second
World War. But in some local areas,
there may well be a serious — and
unrecognized — problem. There are
recurring episodes of the discovery of
old waste dumps and resulting public
alarms.
Hazardous materials such as arsenic,
lead and mercury were used in many
consumer products in the past. Today,
Victorian houses and furnishings are
much sought after for restoration. If
some of the materials or components of
these items entail even low-level risks
of chronic or acute toxicity, either during
their rehabilitation and restoration or to
eventual users, warning to the public or
instructions for careful handling may be
needed.
This mini-assessment was developed
to probe the likelihood that as yet
unidentified environmental problems
may derive and arise from events far in
the past. The major criterion for the
selection of case studies was that they
be related to nineteenth-century industry
and that they have a potential for
environmental effects that could have
survived or endured for many decades.
This retrospective assessment was
approached from two viewpoints. First,
prominent nineteenth-century indus-
tries were surveyed to find potential
hazards. Second, twentieth-century
concerns (especially the List of Toxic
Substances) were reviewed and con-
sidered for their historical antecedents.
In both exercises, historians and techni-
cal experts were consulted. The lists
that emerged from these exercises
included industries, technological sys-
tems or clusters or systems, raw
materials and other inputs, and products
or by-products.
Items were then examined in terms of
the following criteria:
Risk: Does the subject involve the
possibility of risk to health and safety,
or environmental damage?
Persistence: Could the source of risk
have survived over time? Could it be
generating detrimental impacts today?
Could it be capable of generating such
impacts in the future, if the source
were brought out of storage, either
deliberately by restoration or inad-
vertently by excavation or dredging?
In this assessment, the emphasis was
on only present and future risk or
problems, not historical ones.
Dispersion and Scale: If a risk or
problem exists, would it be of impor-
tance? A risk was considered impor-
tant if it met any of the following
criteria: (1) Widespread, affecting
many people or large parts of the
country; (2) Highly concentrated in
one or more regions or localities in
which it might present severe prob-
lems; (3) Capable of exposing cate-
gories of people, segments of the
population, or special environments
to special risks.
Portability, Transport: Could the
problem have expanded over time?
Could the surviving sources of risk
spread? Could they have been relo-
cated? For example, toxic substances
can be transported by natural forces
— leaching, erosion, or water currents;
contaminated soil might be used
elsewhere as a landfill. This would
make any hazard doubly unsuspected
and hard to identify.
Historical Unawareness: Was the risk
or problem recognized in the nine-
teenth-century? The toxicity of some
materials has been recognized only
recently due to advances in medical
science and biological science and in
measurement capabilities, or because
the detrimental impacts are very slow
to mature or are cumulative. The
hypothesis was that fnaterials whose
risk was well recognized would have
been handled more carefully. How-
ever, research indicates that even
when dangers were well known (for
example, arsenic) disposal was not
necessarily handled so as to protect
either nineteenth-century workers or
future generations.
Current Understanding: Is the prob-
lem well-known today? Is research
underway or have remedial programs
been initiated? Since the purpose of
the mini-assessment was to identify
unforeseen problems, the emphasis
was on identifying possible problems
whose existence is not proven and
where the probability of occurrence,
in fact, may be quite low.
Using these criteria, eleven topics
were selected as being of particular
concern arsenic, asbestos, cyanides,
lead, mercury, electroplating industry,
iron and steel industry, tanning industry,
coal industry, dams and sediment, and
canals (containing waste).
From these, arsenic, the coal industry,
the iron and steel industry, and dams
and sediments were selected for greater
attention through case studies. Arsenic
was chosen as exemplary of toxic
substances used in a variety of indus-
tries. Coal is having a resurgence of
utilization, and under some circum-
stances could regain its nineteenth-
century preeminence as a source of
energy. The iron and steel industry is
also a prime target for reindustrializa-
tion or modernization in the near-term
future, and there is a real possibility that
either demolition or repairand rebuilding
of the industry's facilities could bring old
wastes to the surface. Old dams are of
particular interest at present for two
reasons. First, there is the question of
structural safety and the environmental
problems associated with either failure
or repair. Second, there is an active
program of rehabilitating old dams for
hydropower development. The report
provides an indepth analysis of these
topic areas distilling the most potentially
significant concerns and providing
recommendations for further research
by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
Results
Arsenic
Arsenic and arsenic compounds were
used m the nineteenth-century in a
wide variety of manufacturing processes
and consumer products. Arsenic is an
element that persists, and its toxic
properties endure. A number of areas
were identified where nineteenth-
century arsenic residues are likely to be
found and result in exposures today.
These include:
• In residual mine tailing and manu-
facturing waste dumps close to the
site of old mines and factories,
either on the surface or subsurface
where they may be encountered in
excavation.
• In sediments in reservoirs, lakes,
rivers, canals, or bays, either as a
result of water-based disposal or
through erosion of agricultural
lands treated with pesticides.
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• As residues embedded in buildings
once used for processing and
manufacturing.
• In a variety of nineteenth-century
consumer products still in use,
being refurbished, or collected and
displayed as curious or historical
objects
Coal and Coal Products
The coal industry was in its hayday
between 1870 and 1920, when coal
was the dominant fuel for America's
industry. Coal also heated America's
homes, and for a few decades, coal gas
illuminated its streets, public buildings
and residences. Coal-based chemistry
also provided many widely used indus-
trial materials and consumer products.
Sources of enduring environmental
problems left over from the nineteenth-
century coal industry include mining,
combustion, and coal products. The
problems left over from nineteenth-
century mining are well recognized,
widespread, severe, and, to a large
extent, not yet solved. The problems
associated with coal combustion in the
past have in part gone with those who
suffered from them, and those problems
that remain — such as damaged art
work and deteriorated building facades
and bridges — can hardly be distin-
guished from the results of twentieth-
century contaminants. Coal-based
products are not known to contain
carcinogens, and here the residuals
from the last century are less studied
and less well recognized Unless the
lessons of the past are appreciated,
these problems may well recur if the
national policy of encouraging coal use
is successful.
Iron and Steel
In the last quarter of the nineteenth-
century, the United States became the
world's leading producer of iron and
steel. In 1900, it mined 26 million tons
of iron ore and produced 6.7 million long
tons of Bessemer steel and 3.4 million
tons of open-hearth steel.
Every step of this process, from
mining to steel shaping and finishing
could conceivably have left behind
residual environmental problems and
hazards. These include:
• Sediment and soils contaminated
with high levels of tar, phenols,
cyanide, and napthalene in areas of
abandoned coke ovens and blast
furnaces.
• The presence of a substance called
"moondust" in the gas lines and
flues of abandoned coke ovens.
Chemically, this residue is com-
posed of iron, sulphur, ash, hydro-
gen sulfide, cyanide, phenol, sul-
fates, chlorides, and heavy metals.
It can be both toxic and explosive.
Demolition or rehabilitation of coke
ovens could pose significant hazards
to workers.
Dams
Before 1900, 1582 dams were built in
what is now the United States. Three-
quarters of the 1582 nineteenth century
dams are located in ten states: Colorado
(219), Connecticut (215), Massachusetts
(141), Michigan (129), California (103),
Rhode Island (94), Pennsylvania (87),
New Hampshire (82), Maine (76), and
North Carolina (64). About 20 percent of
these dams are now hazardous. If they
should fail, there could be substantial
loss of life. There would almost certainly
be significant environmental impacts.
Any dam — nineteenth-century or
twentieth-century — may contain toxic
wastes in its sediments, from urban
run-off, industrial effluents, erosion of
agricultural land treated with pesticides
and fertilizers, etc. The older dams have
been collecting such sediments over a
longer period, and are also more likely to
have trapped toxic wastes from the
1800's, when mining and manufacturing
operations routinely disposed of toxic
materials by dumping them into streams
or on the ground. Of special concern
would be lead, mercury, arsenic, and
cyanides, which were used in, or were
by-products of, many different nine-
teenth-century industries. Whether
dams fail, are deliberately breached to
prevent unexpected failure, or are
repaired (which usually requires dredg-
ing) these toxic sediments may re-
emerge as an environmental, health,
and safety problem.
Recommendations
This brief assessment of nineteenth-
century industry indicates that there are
hazards and problems that remain from
the industrial activities that took place in
the last century. These problems are
neither as severe nor as widespread as
the by-products of twentieth-century
technology, but they are not insignifi-
cant. In some areas, particularly the
sites of mtensive nineteenth-century
manufacturing and mining, they may
well represent a serious — and largely
unrecognized — problem.
The following recommendations are
made by the study:
1. EPA should continue to fund explor-
atory retrospective environmental
impact assessment. High priority
areas of concern for more detailed
assessments include:
Materials Industries
Systems
arsenic
asbestos
cyanides
lead
mercury
coal
electroplating
iron and steel
tanning
dams and
reservoirs
canals
urban
networks
These assessments should be
planned so that, should they indicate
problems of substantial magnitude
and significance, they would lead
directly to successive levels of
assessment and action programs
including regional and site-specific
assessments, field sampling, and
design of remedial measures.
2. EPA should consider the develop-
ment of information bulletins directed
at local communities to alert them of
the possibility of residual risks from
nineteenth-century industry, and to
suggest that local governments
review their industrial history for
possible sources of environmental
contaminants and structural hazards.
Information bulletins should also be
targeted at occupational and avoca-
tional groups who may be particularly
likely to be exposed to such risks.
3. EPA should initiate discussions with
other responsible agencies on sev-
eral areas of overlapping concern,
such as:
• Toxic residuals from the nine-
teenth-century which may be
concentrated in sediments behind
old dams (Army Corps of Engineers,
Bureau of Land Management/
Department of the Interior, and
State programs for dams found to
be hazardous).
• Possible health and safety effects
of toxic substances to which
construction workers, furniture
restorers, museum workers, and
other occupational groups may be
especially exposed (Occupational
Safety and Health Administration).
• Lead, arsenic, and mercury content
of nineteenth-century antiques
and artifacts (Consumer Product
Safety Commissions).
« U.S. GOVERNMENT PfllNTINO OFFICE: 1M2 -559-017/0840
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Vary T. Coates, Thecla Fabian, and Margaret McDonald are with Dames &
Moore, Washington, DC 20014.
Robert Barles is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Nineteenth Century Technology—Twentieth
Century Problems: A Retrospective Mini-Assessment," (Order No. PB 82-
242 058; Cost: $13.50, subject to change) will be available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield. VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Office of Exploratory Research
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington. DC 20406
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmental Research
Information
Cincinnati OH 45268
Postage and
Fees Paid
Environmental
Protection
Agency
EPA 335
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use $300
s
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