posted 08-02-2002 02:40 AM               

Spots Worry Camden, N.J. Residents

By GEOFF MULVIHILL

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - There's something strange underfoot in Camden.

Black blobs polka-dotting the streets and sidewalks of the Waterfront South area have some residents fearful for their health and worried the blobs might signal the end of their neighborhood.

The Department of Environmental Protection doesn't know what it is. Neither does the Camden County Health Department.

When lifelong resident Bonnie Sanders gives a tour of the neighborhood, an area more depressed than most in one of the country's poorest cities, she just points down.

The spots morph over a few days, Sanders explained. The fresh ones look like small oil spills - most of them round, most of them about 6 inches across.

Though they look like liquid, they don't feel like it. As they dry, the blobs get smaller, darker and look waxy. They end up about the size of a half-dollar and they're not easy to get off the sidewalks.

Some neighbors tell Sanders she's paranoid, that there's a simple explanation for the stuff. Perhaps, they say, it was just chewing gum.

"You could give the whole damn city of Camden a piece of chewing gum and it wouldn't be all these spots," said Sanders, 54.

The Waterfront South is a neighborhood where factories and homes make uncomfortable neighbors. It is strewn with bits of broken bottles, potato chip wrappers and a few stray pieces of furniture.

While sidewalks everywhere have splotches, the concentration in the neighborhood is high - dozens in most sections of concrete. Sanders fears the stuff is causing health maladies. "A lot of people are complaining about headaches," she said. "New people are coming down with asthma."

Wanda Johnson is skeptical.

The 46-year-old salon worker is less concerned about black goo than she is about whether there are secret plans to raze all the homes in the neighborhood. She squatted down Wednesday and dug into one of the sidewalk blobs with her car key. "This is black tar off a roof," she declared as she stared at the speck of stuff at the end of her key. Maybe. Or maybe not.

State and county inspectors visited the neighborhood site last week. A quick field test wasn't able to confirm that the substance was petroleum-based, said Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Fred Mumford.

That seems to rule out tar from roofs or street repairs and leaky cars.

Officials at more than a dozen industrial facilities and two federal Superfund contaminant sites said they haven't had any operational problems that would cause the splotches, Mumford said.

Bob Lentine, assistant commissioner of the county health department, said he thinks the stuff might be industrial pollutants or fuel discharge from the jets that fly directly overhead from nearby Philadelphia. In any case, it's probably nothing to worry about, he said.

Results of more tests were expected to take a few more days.

posted 08-02-2002 09:33 PM               

N.J. Town's 'Blobs' Are Actually Wax

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAMDEN, N.J.- The blobs that have mysteriously shown up on the city's streets and sidewalks were at least partially explained Friday.

State and county officials said the stuff is paraffin wax and poses no risk, but they won't venture a guess as to how it got reached the Waterfront South neighborhood.

Paraffin wax is used in industrial processes and for making candles. Camden County Health Department spokeswoman Lorraine Hynes said hot weather probably made the goo more noticeable, melting dabs of it into dark, waxy, half-dollar-sized splotches in an area with industrial facilities and homes.

Solving the mystery became a near-obsession for Bonnie Sanders and other neighborhood residents who feared the stuff was harmful.

Sanders said she thinks she still doesn't know the truth. "I believe they're covering it up, I really do," she said.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2002/aug/02/080200169.html

quote:

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Paraffin wax is used in industrial processes and for making candles.

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Paraffin wax is also also a good preservative for biologicals.

Wastes of War

A Puzzle of Epidemic Proportions

quote:

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The two pathologists also preserved tissue samples. In a cupboard at his office in the Yekaterinburg morgue, Grinberg still has a box of small matchbox-size tissue samples preserved in paraffin wax that only recently have unlocked new secrets about the epidemic. In an interview, they said they were unsure why.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/biologicala.htm

posted 08-04-2002 09:47 PM               

Officials Identify Mysterious Camden Blobs

CAMDEN, NJ: August 3, 2002 — Part of the mystery afflicting streets and sidewalks in the city's Waterfront South neighborhood is solved: The substance polka-dotting the streets is paraffin wax and health officials say it poses no risk.

But state and county officials won't venture a guess as to how it got there.

Camden County Health Department spokeswoman Lorraine Hynes said the hot weather probably made the goo more noticeable, melting the little dabs of it into large, dark splotches that decorate pavement in an area that's home to both industrial facilities and homes.

In the last few weeks, cracking the case of the stuff on the streets became a near-obsession for a few neighborhood residents including Bonnie Sanders. They figured the stuff wasn't roof tar or chewing gum and feared it was harmful.

Paraffin wax is used in industrial processes and for making candles. Forms of it available commercially melt at temperatures starting at about 125 degrees, a temperature sidewalks certainly reached under a blistering sun mixing with temperatures nearing 100 degrees several times in the last few weeks.

Though the case is closed as far as the health department is concerned, it is not for Sanders.

"I believe they're covering it up, I really do," said Sanders, who said she'd heard about the splotches in neighboring towns including Collingswood and Philadelphia.

"How would wax fly all the way across the Delaware River?" she asked.