Open Sores, Hair Loss: Dioxane Contamination From Laboratory Burial Site

After a hazardous waste site in Dartmouth, NH, released pollution into a private drinking water well, members of one family said they experienced severely adverse health effects.

“Both Debbie and Richard Higgins report short-term health problems: hair loss, peeling skin in their mouths, open sores between their fingers. Their dog was urinating blood. It all stopped when the bottled water came,” according to New Hampshire Public Radio.

Debbie explained the breadth of the health problems she experienced after drinking the tainted water. “I was having some vertigo; it felt like water was in my left ear constantly and every time I tipped my head up I would get dizzy,” she said. “So when I went to my yearly exam I mentioned it to my doctor and she looked in my ear, like there’s nothing clogging it up, she sees nothing in there."

The Higgins family has passed on tap water for a year since they found out 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen, was tainting the water in their home, the report said.

Dioxane in water is difficult to treat, according to the U.S. EPA in its handbook on how to handle the contaminant. The handbook notes that 1,4-dioxane is “fully miscible in water.”

“As a hydrophilic contaminant, it is not, therefore, amenable to the conventional ex situ treatment technologies used for chlorinated solvents. Successful remedial technologies must take into account the challenging chemical and physical properties unique to 1,4-dioxane,” it continued.

The handbook cites a total of 15 projects where 1,4-dioxane was treated in groundwater. Twelve of the project used ex situ advanced oxidation processes.

In New Hampshire, the contamination occurred when a hazardous waste site was excavated.

“A chemical plume had moved downhill from a burial site about 800 feet away, at Rennie Farm. In the 1960s and '70s, it was a burial ground for lab animals; human tissue and fetuses; and radioactive materials used for research,” the public radio report said, citing Dartmouth Medical School records. Sampling found that “1,4-dioxane and a handful of radionuclides had seeped into the groundwater.”

During the excavation, “contractors in full-body hazmat suits were digging up radioactive carcasses, used syringes and soil soaked with a strange purple fluid,” the West Lebanon Valley News reported.

New Hampshire environmental officials said they tested 20 private wells and have not found 1-4, dioxane. “The testing continues, and some neighbors remain concerned that the carcinogen may be spreading to their drinking water supplies,” the report said.

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