SOUTHBOROUGH -- Two MetroWest organizations received dubious
honors yesterday, landing on an environmental group's "Dirty
Dozen" list for worst polluters in the state this year.
The Boston-based Toxics Action Center named the
Massachusetts Dental Society in Southborough, for mercury
pollution, and the city of Marlborough's Easterly Wastewater
Treatment Plant, for phosphorus pollution, as two of the
12.
For the past six years, the center has selected
organizations it feels pose a serious public health or
environmental threat.
"These are places and sites throughout the state that are or
could be having serious effects on neighbors and
communities," said Jay Rasku, the center's director.
"(Honoring) the Massachusetts Dental Society is a little
unusual," he said. "We usually target hazardous waste sites
and power plants but mercury is a big problem."
The Massachusetts Dental Society, part of the American
Dental Association, is a professional organization with
around 4,500 practicing and retired dentists.
"Mercury is one of the most toxic chemicals out there,"
Rasku said. "It causes severe neurological problems,
especially in children."
For dentists, mercury comes from the amalgam fillings used
for cavities.
Nationwide, dentists use approximately 40 metric tons of
mercury each year, most of which is released into the
environment, according to Tiffany Skogstrom, Boston campaign
organizer for Health Care Without Harm, the organization
that nominated MDS for the award.
"Dentists are the largest source of mercury in
Massachusetts, discharging 36 pounds of mercury down
the drains into the Massachusetts Bay every year,"
Skogstrom said.
The mercury, she said, especially harms woman of child-
bearing age and children under 12. "It gets into the food
chain and then into our bodies."
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has issued
warnings against eating fish caught in the waterways because
of their high concentration of mercury, Rasku added.
Hospitals around the state have specific regulations on
mercury disposal, Skogstrom said.
"In 1995, the Greater Boston Area Hospital dumped 22 pounds
of mercury into the water. In 2001, they had 1 pound," she
said. "Hospitals are forced to comply but dentists still are
unregulated today."
In 2001, the MDS signed a memorandum with the Executive
Office of Environmental Affairs for the reduction of
mercury, but according to Rasku, the agreement focused on
education outreach instead of action.
"We need MDS to step up and require regulations and advocate
for mercury filters for dentists throughout the state," he
said. "The simple solution is to require the dentists to
install these filters."
Choosing products that don't contain mercury, Rasku said, is
another step dentists can take.
More than 90 percent of the mercury used by dentists is
caught before going into the waterways, according to
Dr. Shepard Goldstein, president of the Massachusetts
Dental Society.
Seventy percent of mercury from the fillings is caught with
two filters from the suction equipment dentists use,
Goldstein said. More than 20 percent is then removed from
the waste management companies.
Although there is no official regulation, Goldstein said the
MDS sends out a card stating the best practices for handling
and recycling mercury wastes and other chemicals.
The dental society also met with the Massachusetts Water
Resources Authority, which Goldstein said is happy with its
management of mercury disposal.
"We are really right up on it," he said. "Most of the
(mercury) reaching the fish is already in the air from
power plants...We are not getting into the ponds and lakes
like that."
In response to using another product besides amalgam,
Goldstein said based on research it is the best and most cost-
effective product.
"In the present moment with everything out there we are
doing a very good job," he said. "We are certainly always
open to other approaches."