Poison Papers project

KOLOA — Three tons of information.

That’s what Jonathan Latham was handed one day in rural Oregon when he met a woman named Carol Van Strum.

The more than 250,000 pages came from boxes from a barn and are documents from chemical companies and from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that Latham and his team say point to collusion and corruption.

Now, those records are in a searchable online database known as the “Poison Papers,” and Latham, who has a background in microbiology, will be diving into their details on Friday night at the Koloa Neighborhood Center.

“They show in excruciating detail fraudulent testing done by testing companies and EPA accepting it,” Latham said.

Representatives from EPA didn’t return requests for comment from TGI before deadline Thursday.

The documents date back to the 1970s, back to when the EPA was formed by President Richard Nixon and those who have analyzed the papers say the documents show the chemical testing companies have been and are still working with the industry instead of producing pure data.

And the papers reportedly show EPA repeatedly finds ways to let that data slide.

“What makes these documents interesting is they show the specifics and explain what’s happening and why,” Latham said.

The bottom line, he says, is that the papers show fundamental issues in the U.S. chemical testing system and the implication is that none of the EPA chemicals have been tested properly.

Hawaii’s recent ban on the chemical chlorpyrifos, for example, shows at least a major hiccup in the system since it took 40 years for enough damaging evidence to surface for the state to ban it.

“It says our chemical testing system doesn’t work well and this goes along with the lesson with the Poison Papers,” Latham said. “It’s an impressive achievement (banning the pesticide), but it raises the question about why it was approved in the first place.”

Latham is separating the more than 250,000 pages of information into three talks throughout Hawaii, which will be broadcast online. Each talk — one on Oahu, one on Maui and one on Kauai — will be focusing on a different part of the Poison Papers, with the Koloa talk focusing on pesticides and chemical companies.

Latham will be at Koloa Neighborhood Center tonight. His talk, sponsored by The Mom Hui, Hawaii SEED, and GMO Free Kauai, starts at 6:30 p.m.

To view The Poison Papers, visit www.poisonpapers.org. For more information about the event call 651-9603.

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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or at jelse@thegardenisland.com