The coastal Georgia city of Brunswick is home to one of the country’s busiest ports, a historic Old Town boasting Victorian-era buildings and a robust fishing and shrimping industry.
It may also be Georgia’s most polluted city. Brunswick is home to four Superfund sites, a federal designation for contaminated properties that require a long-term cleanup. That’s more than any other city in the Peach state.
Now, a new peer-reviewed Emory University study confirms what many in the city of 15,000 have long-suspected: Some Brunswick residents have been exposed to rare toxins tied to the polluted sites around them at levels that far outstrip the general population.
For the study, researchers from Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health collected blood samples from 100 residents of Glynn County, which is home to Brunswick.
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
In nearly 40% of the participants, researchers detected blood levels of rare polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs — a class of now-banned man-made chemicals — that were higher than 95% of the general population of the U.S. They found more than 20% of those tested had concentrations of toxaphene, a pesticide produced for years in a local factory run by Hercules, that were above the 95th percentile nationally. Some had levels in their bodies “many times higher” than even those considered the most exposed in the U.S., the scientists said.
Noah Scovronick, an Emory associate professor of environmental health and one of the study’s lead authors, said these chemicals “can persist in the environment for long periods of time and are known to have contaminated some industrial sites in Glynn County.”
The findings resemble what’s been shared with the local community in public meetings over the last year and a half. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also observed blood sampling for the study and reported the preliminary results early last year. But their publication in Environmental Pollution, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, adds new heft to the findings.
The scientists began looking into pollution exposure in Brunswick back in 2022 at the urging of community groups, who have been concerned for years about health effects of the area’s legacy of industrial pollution.
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Brunswick’s Superfund sites include a tidal creek where wastewater from the former Hercules pesticide plant was discharged; and the LCP Chemicals site, an 813-acre property on the marsh that hosted several industrial tenants over the decades, including a power plant, an oil refinery and a chlorine factory. Some of that heavy industry fouled soil, groundwater and almost 700 acres of surrounding marsh with dangerous pollutants, including mercury, lead and PCBs.
Both the Hercules plant and LCP Chemicals closed years ago, but the harmful pollutants they produced linger in the environment.
Neither Hercules nor Honeywell, the multinational giant that purchased the LCP Chemicals property in 1998, responded to requests for comment.
Emory’s study only evaluated the community’s exposure to the toxins and compared them to the general population. It did not explore how chemicals made it into peoples’ bloodstreams or try to tie specific health impacts to the pollutants.
But the study’s results hint at exposure from the environment around Brunswick, the researchers said. The two PCBs found at high levels in study participants are known to exist in marshlands around the city. The same is true for toxaphene.
“The most plausible explanation is that there was a local source of these contaminants,” Scovronick said.
From the 1940s until 1980, Hercules produced toxaphene, a pesticide later found to harm wildlife and humans. Its use was banned in the U.S. in 1990 and today, the federal Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as a probable human carcinogen.
Portions of the LCP Chemicals site are contaminated with mercury, lead and PCBs, which were once used in transformers and other electrical equipment. The EPA says PCBs are also a probable human carcinogen linked to immune system impairment, lower birth weight and neurological deficits.
The EPA, which is overseeing cleanup at some Brunswick Superfund sites and conducting long-term pollution monitoring at others, did not immediately offer comment on the findings.
Anita Collins, a Brunswick resident who grew up near the Hercules plant and heads a local citizen-led planning group, praised the Emory team’s efforts to investigate the community’s long-standing concerns.
“We want folks to know about the legacy of industrial harms, the reality of a fence line neighborhood and the chronic health issues experienced by our neighbors in Brunswick, a breathtakingly beautiful paradise,” Collins said.
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Emory’s study did not find unusually high levels of mercury or other heavy metals in the participants.
The survey did detect elevated exposure to a specific type of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance, or PFAS, a class of man-made chemicals that have been linked to cancers and other health problems. The specific PFAS that showed up at unusually high levels in some participants is perfluorodecanoic acid, or PFDA, which has been used to greaseproof food packages, furniture, carpets and more, according to the EPA. The agency is currently studying PFDA’s human health effects.
Scovronick said his team wants to expand the study to enroll more participants, plus explore other questions the community still had about the pollution — like how people were exposed and what the health consequences are.
He said they are seeking funding from the National Institutes of Health to support the study’s next phase. But like many federal agencies, the NIH has endured deep staff cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration and has pulled back on research funding. Under Trump, the EPA has also been hit with staffing cuts, which some have warned could hamstring Superfund cleanups.
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