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MIDLAND, Mich. (AP) -- The government has spent many millions of dollars in recent decades cleaning up sites contaminated with dioxin and, in extreme cases, relocating residents of entire neighborhoods tainted by the toxin.But tough new pollution standards proposed by the Obama administration could require additional dioxin cleanups at scores of abandoned factories, military bases, landfills and other locations declared safe years ago, officials say.If the guidelines receive final approval, federal and state officials will examine sites with known dioxin contamination to identify those needing work and what the work will cost. Among those expected to be reviewed are notorious places such as the former village of Times Beach, Mo., where about 2,000 people were relocated in the 1980s after dioxin-laced waste oil was sprayed on roads to control dust.The Environmental Protection Agency plan has escalated a decades-long debate over the danger of dioxin, a family of chemical byproducts from industries such as pesticide and herbicide production, waste incineration and smelting. One form of dioxin was in Agent Orange, the defoliant used by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.The EPA is expected to make a final decision this fall on the new standards. But congressional critics and chemical companies say the agency is acting hastily and should wait until it completes a reassessment of dioxin's health effects in the coming months."They're proposing these sweeping changes to regulations without giving us an idea of how many sites will be affected, how many homes will be affected, what the economic impact would be," said Rep. Dave Camp, a Republican whose Michigan district includes a 50-mile-long watershed polluted with dioxin from a Dow Chemical Co. plant.EPA officials say they want to move ahead because they are convinced dioxin is hazardous at lower concentrations than previously thought. If necessary, they say, the standards can be adjusted later."We're driven by the need to protect against excessive risk of both cancer and non-cancer health concerns," said Mathy Stanislaus, EPA assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response. "We believe (the current standards) are not sufficiently protective and more stringent numbers are needed."The Associated Press obtained an EPA list of 92 current and former Superfund locations where records show that dioxin is among the soil contaminants, making them candidates for a review under the new standards.The sites include Cherry Point Marine Air Station in North Carolina, Camp Pendleton Marine Base in California and the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado.Also listed is an abandoned wood treatment plant in Pensacola, Fla., where more than 350 households had to be relocated in the 1990s.The notorious Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls, N.Y., where hundreds of families were uprooted, also may rate another look although it was declared clean in 2004 after dioxin and other chemicals were removed or covered, the EPA says.The EPA also estimates that up to 150 hazardous waste sites not on the Superfund list may have dioxin contamination and will need reviewing.Since 1998, the agency has regarded dioxin soil concentrations of less than 1,000 parts per trillion (ppt) as safe for residential areas. For commercial and industrial zones, 5,000 ppt to 20,000 ppt has been considered safe.The proposed revisions would drop the safe levels to a fraction as much - 72 ppt for residential areas and 950 ppt for commercial and industrial sites.Cleanups could be ordered anywhere dioxin readings exceed those thresholds, including sites where previous cleanups used less stringent standards.The 1,000 ppt standard was used for Times Beach's $120 million cleanup completed in 1997 after 265,000 tons of dioxin-contaminated materials were incinerated. Two years later, the abandoned town was converted into a state park.Marilyn Leistner, the last mayor of Times Beach, said she always suspected the job was inadequate and crews would be back one day."My attitude is, 'I told you so. You should have done it in the first place,'" Leistner said.David Fischer, an attorney with the American Chemistry Council, said: "It could mean a great deal of cost and disruption to communities and municipalities who thought their issues had been resolved. And there will be little if any public health benefit."EPA officials say the standards are guidelines, not hard-and-fast targets that must be reached at every site. For example, regulators may decide that higher dioxin levels are acceptable when there is little chance of human contact.The World health Organization says significant exposure to dioxin, which is present to widely varying degrees in soils, river sediments and some foods, can damage human reproductive and immune systems.The WHO's cancer research arm, part of the National Institutes of Health and the EPA all have designated the most potent form of dioxin as a human carcinogen.But the National Research Council recommended in 2006 that EPA conduct more research, noting that the agency's conclusion had relied on occupational and animal studies where doses are higher than those to which people typically would be exposed.EPA's upcoming health risk assessment is expected to revisit the cancer issue.The debate is playing out along the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers in Michigan, where sediments and floodplains were polluted last century with dioxin from a Dow plant in Midland.The company acknowledges responsibility but has argued with regulators over what cleanup is necesssary.Spokeswoman Mary Draves declined comment on the proposed standards and said the company wouldn't speculate on how they might affect the cleanup.But Dow, a leading employer, has many supporters who doubt there is a serious threat."The process of cleaning up could cause more trouble than the dioxin itself," said Tittabawassee Township Supervisor Rick Hayes.Signs along the rivers warn anglers to limit consumption of their catch because of dioxin and other contaminants. Even so, the village of Freeland holds a yearly walleye fishing tournament."The dioxin is real, it's pervasive, it's toxic," said Michelle Hurd Riddick, a member of a local environmental group called the Lone Tree Council. "But some people just want to look the other way." AP-->

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit. Doing it a lot can lead to "toasted skin syndrome," an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports. In one recent case, a 12-year-old boy developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months. "He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position," Swiss researchers reported in an article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. Another case involved a Virginia law student who sought treatment for the mottled discoloration on her leg. Dr. Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, was stumped until she learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer propped on her lap. The temperature underneath registered 125 degrees. That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years. The condition also can be caused by overuse of heating pads and other heat sources that usually aren't hot enough to cause burns. It's generally harmless but can cause permanent skin darkening. In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not cite any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case or other heat shield under the laptop if you have to hold it in your lap. Salkey, an assistant dermatology professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, said that under the microscope, the affected skin resembles skin damaged by long-term sun exposure. Major manufacturers including Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell warn in user manuals against placing laptops on laps or exposed skin for extended periods of time because of the risk for burns. A medical report several years ago found that men who used laptops on their laps had elevated scrotum temperatures. If prolonged, that kind of heat can decrease sperm production, which can potentially lead to infertility. Whether laptop use itself can cause that kind of harm hasn't been confirmed. In the past, "toasted skin syndrome" has occurred in workers whose jobs require being close to a heat source, including bakers and glass blowers, and, before central heating, in people who huddled near potbellied stoves to stay warm. Dr. Anthony J. Mancini, dermatology chief at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said he'd treated a boy who developed the condition from using a heating pad "hours at a time" to soothe a thigh injured in soccer. Mancini said he'd also seen a case caused by a hot water bottle. He noted that chronic, prolonged skin inflammation can potentially increase chances for squamous cell skin cancer, which is more aggressive than the most common skin cancer. But Mancini said it's unlikely computer use would lead to cancer since it's so easy to avoid prolonged close skin contact with laptops. AP-->

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