Dr. Myers comment is the tip of the contamination iceberg for the Australian people as they rebuild New South Wales and Victoria.
Like almost everyone, Australians have likely been bewitched by the remarkable technical and cost performances of polyvinylchloride (PVC). PVC is a top go-to material for plumbing, wiring, clapboard, windows, doors, fences, spouting, flooring, furniture, swimming pool linings and many other things.
But under the wrong conditions PVC has dreadful health environmental and fairness performances. The worst conditions arise on burning PVC in open fires. Dioxins form. A number are incredibly toxic at miniscule doses, especially to fetuses and the young because they high-jack chemical signals that direct development. Dioxins persist and are fat loving. They accumulate readily in living things staying interminably as unwelcome guests.
Affected regions will have to watch their butter and cheese for dioxin content. Animals and crops such as grapes could easily be seriously contaminated as Dr. Myers pointed out. Pastureland, vegetable gardens, and back yards, schools and city parks where children play are likely contaminated.
Dioxins are the sword of Damocles hovering over PVC-rich built environments. I hope our Australian friends will avoid PVC altogether in rebuilding.
As we all surely realize, the fires may return.
Terry Collins, Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry, Director, Institute for Green Science, Carnegie Mellon University
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It's not just bushfires and climate change that threaten the Hunter Valley. There are a massive series of coal mines that are considered a contamination risk by many vineyards and Horse breeders, plus the tourist industry. Giant open cut mines are in some of the most fertile farmlands in the state that have had value added in the past by the purity of the local environment, but that is decreasing. It's a clash of two opposing requirements by industries that tend to both be stalwarts of the National party. The NYT should do a article on it, and the clash between farmers (and others who live off the land) versus miners, especially as fossil fuel extraction appears to have a short future as it risk becoming a stranded asset.
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how is this different from the grapes in California and especially Oregon that got covered in ash during the brutal 2018 fire season? they didn't seem to have any problems.
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I’m really sorry for these hard-working winemakers, and I hope they struggle through.
But I just want to say that these photographs are gorgeous.
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If they don't get too unlucky, and market it correctly, it could be a bumper crop for the industry.
you know - The National Fire vintage with a hint of smokiness imported from the Australian outback, and a fine finish of charred 2x4's.
I've heard wines described a lot worse.
And it's not just tongue in cheek - I'm serious! Unless the smoke has completely ruined the wine batches, there may be something there.
A Roc rising from the ashes as it were..
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Who knows? Maybe a smoky Shiraz might have legs? Do not forget the "Noble Rot"!
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It isn't just "smokey" because it wasn't just forest. It was homes that were full of plastic. When you burn plastic you create toxic smoke. When you burn PVC plastic, a common ingredient in the building materials of modern homes, you make dioxin, a teratogen and a powerful endocrine disrupting compound. Before those wines go on the market, they need to be tested for dioxins as well as other residues of burned plastics, like phthalates and bisphenol A. I have studied these chemicals and their toxic effects for thirty years. This is a serious blow to the Australian wine industry and to the unwitting people who drink the contaminated wine. Pete Myers, Ph.D., Environmental Health Sciences and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University.
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Surely you know “the dose is the poison”. Detection is a matter of detection level, not of risk.
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@Darrel Lauren With endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) that 16th century dogma doesn't work. Low doses of hormones and EDCs can turn on different genes than those turned on by high doses. Sometimes high doses even turn off the genes that are turned on by low doses. This is very well established in the science and medicine of hormones. Perhaps the best example is tamoxifen, a chemical used to treat breast cancer. At high doses it shrinks the tumor but at very low doses it promotes tumor growth. Oncologists call it "the tamoxifen flare" and structure their administration of tamoxifen accordingly, because low doses of tamoxifen cause pain as the tumor grows. The shattering but true implication of this phenomenon, called "non-monotonicity", is that high dose testing cannot predict low dose results, neither with hormones nor EDCs. Ironically, while the drug side of the FDA acknowledges this in its recommendations for administering tamoxifen, the food safety side of the FDA ignores it in its assessment of chemicals like bisphenol A, even though their own studies of BPA show statistically significant non-monotonicity.
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@J.P. Myers
Living downwind from the still-smoldering World Trade Center for 4 months, I well remember the bitter, toxic smell in the air from all the burning office products.
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Does the smoke seep right through the grape skins, or do wineries not bother to wash their grapes?
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Smoke doesn't just rinse off, it sticks to the fruit and even only a few parts per million would be smokey tasting. At the levels these grapes were exposed to it would taste disgusting and as another commenter pointed out the smoke contained burnt plastics and other materials.
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I don't get it. Can't they just taste the grapes?
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@Maria of course, and the fruit should be rinsed well then proceed and make the wine and at least find out if it's a lost a year of labors I grew grapes and part of surviving is dealing with what you have
My son has a friend who owns a winery in South Australia. Every vine burned down to the roots, every building destroyed. Recovery will take at least 5 and probably 10 years, but with no income for that long he will not be able to afford to see it done.
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The effects of wildfires are an immediate threat to these wine makers, but the challenges posed by global climate change will make the industry in places like Australia unviable within a few decades. Grapes grown for wine-making really need a narrow, specific band of temperatures during the growing season and as average temperatures creep up, prestigious wine growing regions like Australia, Southern France, the Iberian Peninsula, or California are going to have a harder and harder time producing high quality wine.
Maybe smokey Shiraz and brambly Bordeauxs will actually motivate the rich and powerful to pay attention to climate change.
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Fashions are chaotic. Why can't smokey chardonnay become a thing?
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@cglymour Try it and see. It is surpisingly awful.
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@David Oh, you've had it? I can only imagine how robust the flavor has become having been in cask for, what, three days?
@reid Sorry ol' son, but this is not the first time this has happened ... The famous onay varietal (charred onay) has been joked about for years in oz
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In 2008, wildfires in California contaminated some vineyards in the Anderson Valley with smoke taint. Londer Vineyards tried hard to preserve the quality of its Pinot Noir but ended up selling it at discount, explaining the problem clearly. I paid $36 for one of the deeply discounted cases and we enjoyed most of the bottles (many sound wines have a toasted, smokey quality that is considered an asset). Over a year or so, though, bottles became increasingly smokey and hard to enjoy.
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