#316b: Clarification: Rights of Corporations

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #316
---December 16, 1992---
News and resources for environmental justice.
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ========== RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
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Last week#315 we suggested the need for a Constitutional amendment declaring that a corporation is not a natural person and is therefore not protected by the Bill of Rights and the 14th amendment to the Constitution. Such an amendment would level the playing field somewhat, giving communities and individuals a greater chance of controlling anti-social corporate behavior. As we noted in earlier newsletters (RHWN #308, #309), corporations are now literally out of control. Shareholders cannot control them; boards of directors cannot control them; workers cannot control them; in a competitive world market, even managers have lost control. In some cases, of course, management doesn't care about the environment or the community. But even when managers, as individuals, want to do the right thing, the logic of corporate growth and short-term gain often dictates choices that do not serve the environment or the community. Since corporate behavior is at the root of nearly all environmental problems, stripping corporations of some of their rights (such as the Constitutional protections guaranteed to individual citizens, which the Supreme Court extended to corporations in 1886), would help communities assert control over corporate behavior. Merely DEBATING such an amendment would get people thinking about power in the modern world, asking who has a legitimate right to control what. Ask yourself: who ever gave private corporations the right to manufacture and sell products that can destroy the planet as a place suitable for human habitation? In suggesting such a Constitutional amendment, we omitted reference to the original source of the idea, author Richard Grossman.

For historical background on control of corporations, get: Richard Grossman and Frank T. Adams, TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS: CITIZENSHIP AND THE CHARTER OF INCORPORATION*fn01 (Cambridge, Mass.: Charter, Inc., 1992). For a copy, send $4.00 plus a self-addressed, stamped envelope containing 52 cents postage to: Charter, Inc., P.O. Box 806, Cambridge, MA 02140.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: corporations; constitution; us;

Footnotes:
*fn01 http://www.ratical.com/corporations/TCoBeij.html

#315: Al Gore Takes On The WTI Incinerator

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #315
---December 9, 1992---
News and resources for environmental justice.
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org==========
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=======================Original Source========================

Earlier this week, Vice-President-elect Al Gore weighed in heavily on the side of citizens fighting the WTI incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. On Monday Mr. Gore announced that he and 5 other senators have asked the General Accounting Office (GAO)--an investigative arm of the Congress--to make a thorough examination of WTI, to answer nagging questions about the safety of its huge incinerator, and about the illegality of permits it received from the Bush-Quayle EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] for construction and operation. (See RHWN #287.) Mr. Gore said the new Clinton-Gore administration will not give WTI a test burn permit until all questions have been satisfactorily answered.[1]

It appears to be a major victory for citizen activists who mounted a steadily-escalating campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience to stop WTI. A total of 182 people have been arrested so far in the campaign, which is not over.[2] At a rally November 22, hundreds of people were lined up in the cold rain waiting their turn to climb over the fence onto WTI's property, when the police intervened. No doubt those people remain ready to act whenever necessary. Two young women, local leader Terri Swearingen, 36, and Greenpeace staff member Beth Newman, 32, still face serious contempt-of-court charges for urging others to break the law at the plant gate. They could both be fined several thousand dollars and be jailed for months or longer.

A multi-racial coalition of citizens from Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania has fought for 12 years to stop the WTI hazardous waste incinerator, the largest ever built. With extralegal and even illegal help from Vice-President Quayle's Council on Competitiveness,[3] and George Bush's EPA and Department of Justice, both of which went to bat for WTI AGAINST the local citizenry on several occasions, construction was completed in June, 1992, and the machine now stands poised to burn 176,000 tons of liquid hazardous wastes each year, plus 83,000 tons per year of inorganic wastes,[2] on a flood plain immediately adjacent to the Ohio River, 100 yards from a residential neighborhood, 400 yards from an elementary school, in a valley known for its stagnant air.

A spokesman for the WTI incinerator said Mr. Gore's actions would not affect their plans for burning waste, or for conducting a test burn, now scheduled for January. Thus the Clinton administration appears to be on a collision course with the operator of the plant, a subsidiary of the Swiss company, Von Roll, Inc., best known in the U.S. for its part in manufacturing a Supergun for Iraq.

The NEW YORK TIMES, which ran the story in its business section, observed that this is the first environmental policy decision of the Clinton-Gore administration. The TIMES said it signals two things: first, that Mr. Gore will have a leading role in setting environmental priorities; and second that the new administration intends to enforce environmental laws aggressively.[4] Indeed, Gore's press statement on Monday was couched in law-and-order terms: "Gore's request follows efforts by the Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania lawmakers over several years to persuade government regulators to comply with state and federal environmental laws."

But Gore's action Monday may signal more than a get-tough-on-crooks attitude. It may indicate that Messrs. Gore and Clinton intend to try to rehabilitate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its partner in misfeasance, the U.S. Department of Justice, and thus to continue the endless duel between corporate crime and government eco-police.

Rebuilding the government's eco-police force will prove to be an uphill struggle, particularly at EPA where many Reagan-Bush ideologues are now entrenched in jobs protected by civil service laws.

Even though it has 18,000 employees and an annual operating budget of $4.5 billion,[5] EPA is only a shell of a regulatory agency. Its main function for the past decade has been to shovel taxpayers' money into the pockets of private contractors, known affectionately in Washington as "beltway bandits."

For the past decade, the effect of White House policy has been to drive out good people and replace them with functionaries. Today EPA has few talented, committed employees left, and fewer still who are competent managers. Today many employees simply look upon the agency as a place to do time while awaiting an opportunity for a lucrative trip through the revolving door. Nearly all of EPA's substantive work is now conducted by private contractors, many of whom do shoddy work for which they charge high fees. Of course EPA is not alone in this. "Privatization" has been the hallmark of the Reagan and Bush administrations, and it has proven to be an expensive failure. 

As the NEW YORK TIMES said last week, "In several agencies, particularly the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, contractors are performing virtually all the work."[6]In fact, a report released last week by the White House Office of Management and Budget [OMB] said the problem is "endemic across all the civilian agencies." OMB said their investigation revealed a "culture" of federal agencies eager to award contracts but reluctant to supervise them. Result: "Contractors are squandering vast sums," the TIMES said in summarizing the OMB report which concluded that untold billions of dollars of taxpayers' money has been wasted and spent illegally by private contractors on parties, vacations, and sporting events. In almost every instance where auditors looked, they found problems with contracts. 

For example, CH2M Hill, an Oregon company that supervises the cleanup of hundreds of Superfund dumps for the EPA, and more recently for the Department of Energy, billed the government for parties, country club fees for employees and the use of a corporate airplane, all of which are illegal. In defense of his company, Lyle Hassebrook, president of CH2M Hill, said he is "very proud of our accomplishments" and denied all wrongdoing.

The problem isn't merely wasted money. The work of contractors is often shoddy. For example, the TIMES reported last week, "The Government spends between $500 million and $1 billion annually to determine the levels of toxic materials in soil and water and is becoming concerned that the results are meaningless. In the last four years, in the E.P.A.'s Superfund program to clean abandoned waste sites, the Government has successfully prosecuted six laboratories and 17 individuals for fraud, and three dozen other laboratories are under investigation."[6]

The TIMES says EPA has so little in-house talent left that it cannot function without contractors. Indeed earlier this year a contractor was paid $20,000 to prepare the official response to a Congressional report that criticized the EPA's improper use of contractors.[7]

The Clinton-Gore administration will have a lot of rebuilding to do, if they want to create even the APPEARANCE of a competent environmental protection agency. But they should ask whether it would be worth the trouble. Let's face it: Even in their heyday, the ecopolice could not even slow, much less stop, the poisoning of America. Something much more fundamental than a refurbished EPA will be needed.

In truth, we need something as fundamental as an amendment to the Constitution, declaring that a corporation is not a natural person, and is not protected by the Bill of Rights and the 14th amendment. This would begin to level the playing field in the struggle between predatory corporate marauders and ordinary Americans. Corporations only became "natural persons" under the law when the Supreme Court declared them such in 1886, so we are merely suggesting a return to America's past. Earlier generations of Americans feared corporate power, and now it clear their fears were justified.

To succeed in protecting the environment, the Clinton-Gore administration (and the traditional environmental movement) will have to admit that our problems go much deeper than mere regulatory failure. Few dare speak of it, but let's be candid: the problem is a corporate culture that expects to get rich off government handouts in return for shoddy work or no work at all. The real welfare queens are the likes of Westinghouse, GE, Boeing, Silverado Savings & Loan, General Dynamics, and Rockwell International. The defense industry is justifiably famous for its $600 toilet seats, but now that mentality permeates many, if not most, large corporations. The standard rule seems to be: If the law is in the way, bend it and, when necessary, break it. A corollary is: If human lives are endangered, hire a consultant to complete a risk assessment, then push ahead with the project.

These are not problems that will be solved by buffing up the EPA's image, or even rebuilding its scientific and managerial talent. There is a fundamental imbalance of power in America, which threatens not only our democracy but now even our lives. Many corporations are larger and more powerful than all federal agencies combined. As global competition puts a squeeze on America's traditional way of doing business (see Robert Reich's WORK OF NATIONS, for example), the urge becomes stronger to cut corners and to save a dollar by trashing the environment. Without fundamental reform, things will continue to go downhill at an accelerating pace.

WE APPLAUD AL GORE'S MOVE AGAINST WTI. HE HAS DONE THE RIGHT THING. LET US HOPE THAT IT PRESAGES A FUNDAMENTAL RE-THINKING OF POWER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CORPORATE AMERICA AND ORDINARY PEOPLE.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

===============

[1] Press statement from U.S. Senator Al Gore dated December 7, 1992. 2 pages. Available by fax from the senator's office at (202) 224-4944.

[2] Ellen Connett, "WTI's Hazardous Waste Incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio: Von Roll's Supergun 2," WASTE NOT #217 (November, 1992), pgs. 1-2. WASTE NOT is published weekly by Ellen and Paul Connett, 82 Judson St., Canton, NY 13617; $40/year. Phone: (315) 379-9200.

[3] T.C. Brown, "WTI Sought Quayle's Aid," CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER August 5, 1992, pg. 4-C.

[4] Keith Schneider, "Gore Says Clinton Will Try to Halt Waste Incinerator," NEW YORK TIMES Dec. 7, 1992, pgs. A1, D9.

[5] Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, "'You Can't Get There From Here,'" FORBES July 6, 1992, pgs. 59-64.

[6] Keith Schneider, "U.S. Admits Waste In Its Contracts; Study Says Unsupervised Jobs Cost Government Billions," NEW YORK TIMES December 2, 1992, pgs. A1, D24.

[7] Keith Schneider, "For the Government, Contractors Have Special rates," NEW YORK TIMES December 6, 1992, pg. E2. OUR NEW P.O. BOX HAS ALREADY CHANGED

Last week we announced we're moving to Annapolis, Maryland December 9. This is true. In fact, the deed is done. However the address we gave is already obsolete. At the last minute (yesterday), the Annapolis Post Office offered us a larger P.O. Box, which we need to manage the quantity of mail you all send us.

Therefore, our correct mailing address henceforth is: Environmental Research Foundation P.O. Box 5036 Annapolis, Maryland 21430

Our phone is still (410) 263-1584, our fax is still (410) [263-8944,] and the Rachel database's phone is still (410) 263-8903; please dial in with 8N1, not 7E1.

Don't worry, if you mailed something to the P.O. Box we listed last week, it will be automatically forwarded to the new box, which is only 2 feet away.

Descriptor terms: vice-president gore; president clinton; wti; waste technologies inc; east liverpool; oh; citizen groups; gao; congress; air pollution; epa; superfund; hazardous waste incineration; waste disposal technologies; waste treatment technologies;

#317: The Year in Review: Nuclear

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #317
---December 23, 1992---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =======================Original Source========================

The year 1992 was momentous for the nuclear industries (bombs, and electric power plants). Here are some of the highlights:

Weapons Phase-Out

The U.S. government announced in July it will stop making plutonium and highly-enriched uranium for weapons. Production of plutonium had, in fact, been halted since 1988 because of mechanical and environmental problems. However, President Bush declared a ban on these materials as official U.S. policy in July. (N.Y. TIMES 4/30/92, pg. A14 and 7/14/92, pg. A18.) In September the U.S. announced it had canceled a $6-billion tritium plant planned for Savannah River, near Aiken, Ga.; tritium is needed for weapons triggers. (N.Y. TIMES 9/12/92, pg. 5.)

* * *

The House of Representatives voted a year-long ban on nuclear weapons tests June 4--the first ever in the U.S.. The U.S. conducted 7 underground tests in 1991 and had scheduled 6 for 1992. (N.Y. TIMES 6/5/92, pg. A8.) The Senate in August voted a nine-month moratorium on testing and voted to end all nuclear testing in 1996. (N.Y. TIMES 8/4/92, pg. A7.)

Weapons Proliferation

Concern about the spread, or proliferation, of nuclear weapons increased dramatically when it was revealed in June that Iraq was using a 50-year-old low-tech method called a calutron to produce highly-enriched uranium. An atomic bomb can be made from 45 pounds of enriched uranium or from 7 pounds of plutonium. The international community of "safeguard" specialists (people who worry about how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the wrong people) was thrown into disarray by the revelations in Iraq. The basis of international controls had been to restrict high-tech methods of enriching uranium. No one had expected anyone to use the low-tech method. "It's cataclysmic," said Leonard S. Spector, an expert on the spread of nuclear weapons at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "All this was being done in Iraq without anybody knowing it. So who else is doing it? Everybody in the [safeguard] community knew this kind of thing was a possibility. But to be confronted by an example is devastating." (N.Y. TIMES 7/15/92, pg. A1.)

* * *

The U.S. and the former Soviet Union agreed to retire 40,000 nuclear warheads over the next decade or so. These nuclear devices must be kept safe from black marketeers and terrorists for the duration of the hazard, which is forever. In both east and west, the ultimate fate of hundreds of tons of plutonium and enriched uranium remains undecided. The former Soviet Union alone is reported to have over 1200 tons of enriched uranium that it would now like to sell to the west for reactor fuel. (N.Y. TIMES 7/6/92, pg. A1, and 9/11/92, pg. A8.)

* * *

A brisk international trade in black-market enriched uranium developed this year in Europe. Evidently the breakup and impoverishment of the Soviet bloc has created opportunities to steal radioactivity from nuclear reactors, or from weapons complexes. In October, German authorities arrested seven people who were reportedly trying to sell the makings for nuclear weapons. German authorities said they had investigated 100 cases of international smuggling of radioactive material during the first 10 months of 1992, whereas they had investigated 29 cases during 1991. (NY TIMES 10/20/92, pg. A8.)

Legacy of Waste

The soviets revealed that they have been dumping radioactivity into the Kara Sea, which connects to the Arctic Ocean, for three decades. Besides 4 nuclear-powered submarines lost at sea, the soviets said they dumped four decommissioned naval nuclear reactors in 1965 and 1966, three reactors from the icebreaker LENIN in 1967, a barge carrying a submarine reactor sunk in 1972, and a nuclear-powered submarine jettisoned in 1982. Dr. Charles Hollister of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution calculates that the soviets dumped about 600 million Curies of radioactivity into the ocean, or roughly seven times as much radioactivity as was in the Chernobyl reactor that melted down April 26, 1986. (N.Y. TIMES 5/4/92, pg. A1, and 11/24/92, pg. C9.)

* * *

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report in April indicating there may be as many as 45,000 sites in the U.S. contaminated with radioactivity. Twenty thousand of the sites belonged to the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. The report included sketchy information on 29 accidents involving nuclear warheads that occurred between 1950 and 1980. No agency of the federal government has yet set standards defining what is an acceptable level of cleanup for radioactively-contaminated sites. (N.Y. TIMES 4/9/92, pg. A14.)

* * *

Nuclear Power Hits the Skids

In 1992, economics seemed to be killing the nuclear power industry. In February, owners of the 32-year-old Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant decided to shut it down rather than seek a license to extend its useful lifetime. The metal reactor vessel had become brittle from years of atomic bombardment, and it would have required a major investment to fix. Southern California Edison made a similar judgment about the 24-year-old San Onofre I reactor near San Clemente. During 1991 the Sacramento Municipal Utility District decided to shut the Rancho Seco plant as uneconomic at age 15. The U.S. currently has 108 operating nuclear power plants, producing 20 percent of the nation's electricity. As many as 10 of these could be shut by the end of this decade, mostly for economic reasons.

The decision to shut Yankee Rowe raised new questions about the cost of decommissioning a power reactor. In June the owners of Yankee Rowe estimated it would cost $247 million to close the plant permanently--twice as much as had been predicted earlier, and three times as much as the company has so far set aside to cover shutdown costs. (N.Y. TIMES 6/3/92, pg. D4.)

* * *

Ever optimistic, Westinghouse and General Electric both rolled out designs for a new generation of nuclear power plants. These plants are termed "inherently safe" because they cannot melt down. However, they produce the same amount of radioactive waste and plutonium as the older, inherently dangerous, plants. (N.Y. TIMES 6/28/92, pg. 21, and 7/12/92, pg. F-12)

Justice & Injustice

1992 saw the first criminal prosecution of a federal contractor found guilty of violating environmental laws at an atomic weapons manufacturing plant. Rockwell International pleaded guilty to 5 felonies and 5 misdemeanors June 1 and was fined $18.5 million for illegally dumping hazardous wastes at the Rocky Flats plant near Denver, Colo. Rockwell operated the plant from 1975 to 1989, creating enormous waste and contamination that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars to clean up.

In another first, Rockwell was required to pay the $18.5 million fine out of its own pocket. In 20 previous instances when government contractors were fined for illegalities, the Department of Energy paid the fines on behalf of its contractors. (N.Y. TIMES 6/2/92, pg. A12.)

* * *

The Inspector General of the Department of Energy (DOE) revealed in June that DOE routinely gathers and disseminates "intelligence information" on U.S. citizens, in violation of a Presidential order issued in 1982. (N.Y. TIMES 6/14/92, pg. 37)

Radiation Effects

Thyroid cancer rates were reported to be "soaring" among children exposed to radiation released by the Chernobyl reactor disaster in 1986. According to Dr. Vasily S. Kazakov, writing in the British journal NATURE, thyroid cancer rates began rising in 1990. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the reports. WHO scientists expressed surprise that the cancers were showing up so soon; normally there is a delay of 10 years or more between the time of exposure and the time a thyroid cancer appears. The WHO group wrote, "We believe that the experience in Belarus suggests that the consequence to the human thyroid, especially in fetuses and young children, of the carcinogenic effects of radioactive fallout is much greater than previously thought." (N.Y. TIMES 9/3/92, pg. A9).

* * *

Two research groups, in England and the U.S., reported discovering a new form of delayed injury from radiation. In one study, researchers exposed mouse cells to alpha particles (a type of radiation produced by plutonium and by radon gas) and found that abnormalities of the chromosomes appeared in some descendant cells several generations of cell-division later. The research was carried out by Dr. Eric G. Wright at the British Medical Research Council Radiobiology Unit in Didcot, Oxfordshire, England.

Dr. John D. Little and colleagues at the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston found a similar "delayed mutation" effect using X-rays to irradiate hamster cells.

The delayed effect is different from the immediate genetic damage scientists have observed previously. Usually radiation alters the genetic makeup of a cell, causing its immediate descendants to take on new characteristics. In the new findings, some of the cells that survive radioactive assault appear normal through several divisions. Damage eventually appears in a descendant cell several generations later.

Both research groups said that if the effect is confirmed by further research, it will mean radiation is more dangerous than previously believed. (N.Y. TIMES 2/20/92, pg. A-12.)

A Reason for Hope

The chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) credited citizen activists with shutting down two nuclear facilities in 1992. Ivan Selin said Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE) and the Cherokee Nation helped shut the Sequoyah Fuels Plant in Gore, Oklahoma; and, he said, the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, helped shut the Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant. In both instances, the NRC shut the facilities temporarily after citizens had raised safety and environmental concerns, and the owners then shut them permanently. (N.Y. TIMES 6/23/92, pg. A13.)

In sum, not a bad year.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: nuclear power; us; plutonium; nuclear weapons; enriched uranium; savannah river; ga; aiken; tritium; radioactive waste; remedial action; superfund; landfilling; llw; hlw; westinghouse; ge; doe; rockwell international; thyroid cancer; carcinogens; children; health; radiation; nace; nrc; sequoyah fuels; native people; native americans;

#318: The Year in Review: Toxic's, Part 1

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #318
---December 30, 1992---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =======================Original Source========================
Continuing the review of 1992 highlights we began last week: #317

Non-Cancer Health Effects

For two decades, the chemical industry and the federal government kept the American people focused narrowly on cancer risks from chemical exposures. Meanwhile, largely unnoticed by science or medicine, many chemicals have been affecting the human immune system, reproductive system, and nervous system.

Only a handful of chemicals have been proven to cause cancer in humans. Many more have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals, but an army of scientists now makes a good living by arguing that animal tests don't tell us much about humans. While this debate rages, thunderous quantities of industrial poisons continue to spew into the environment. The environmental movement and the public have allowed the chemical industry and their friends in government to define the terms of the discussion. The result has been two decades of focus on cancer and not much else. Cancer is important, of course, but so are other health problems caused by chemicals.

During 1992, non-cancer threats from chemicals began to get the attention they deserve. For example, SCIENCE magazine, official voice of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said April 3 (pg. 28), IN THE 1980S, HUMAN IMMUNE SYSTEMS WERE FIRST FACED WITH THE BLATANT DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF AIDS. NOW IN THE 1990S, HUMANS--AND IMMUNOLOGISTS--ARE ENCOUNTERING DRAMATIC INCREASES IN YET ANOTHER DISTURBING, THOUGH FAR MORE SUBTLE PROBLEM: ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTANTS ARE HAVING A DELETERIOUS EFFECT ON IMMUNE SYSTEMS. INDEED, EVERYWHERE THESE DAYS DOCTORS ARE SEEING INCREASINGLY SEVERE CASES OF IMMUNE-RELATED DISEASES.

A 1992 report by the National Research Council (NRC), titled, ENVIRONMENTAL NEUROTOXICITY, said, "There is convincing evidence that chemicals in the environment can alter the function of the nervous system." The report suggested that chemical exposures may be responsible for some degenerative brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

NRC said there are 70,000 chemicals now in commercial use and less than 10% of these have ever been tested at all for toxic effects on the nervous system and "only a handful have been evaluated thoroughly."[1]

Risk Assessment

As the focus of concern shifted away from cancer, critics of risk assessment became more vocal. Risk assessment is a technique that first came into use during the Carter administration, then was promoted with a vengeance during the Reagan/Bush years. Risk assessment is now the main intellectual prop that allows industries to continue dumping billions of pounds of industrial poisons into public air and water supplies. When anyone objects, the poisoners trot out a risk assessment produced by some high-priced consultant, showing that the risk of giving anyone cancer is less than one-in-a-million. EPA has blessed this as the official technique for showing that industrial poisons rarely, if ever, cause significant harm. In the desperate latter days of the Bush administration, William Reilly, chief of EPA, even went so far as to suggest that ALL EPA policy should be based on risk assessment.

To expose the swindle inherent in all risk assessments, one merely needs to point out that little or nothing is known about the effects of chemicals on the immune system, the reproductive system, and the nervous system. When little or nothing is known, it is obviously impossible to show that any particular chemical exposure is safe. Under such circumstances, the only dose known to be safe is zero. Since there will never be enough research to discover the ill effects of all INDIVIDUAL chemicals now in use, much less COMBINATIONS of all chemicals now in use, risk assessment is, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, a sham and a deception. Scientists like Tom Webster at Queens College in New York and Mary O'Brien at University of Montana in Billings, and lawyer Paul Merrell of Alder-Hill Associates in Tidewater, Oregon, have published devastating critiques of risk assessment.

The National Research Council's study of neurotoxins jolted the political system into a new awareness of risk assessment. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), sponsor of a bill called the "Safety of Pesticides and Food Act," greeted the NRC report saying, "This report makes clear how little we know about the health consequences of the thousands of toxic chemicals that permeate our high-tech society. The most ominous finding is that current risk assessment methods are not sensitive enough to detect real and avoidable risks lurking in our environment."

If 1992 is any indication, risk assessors in 1993 will find themselves on the defensive.

Incineration

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, evidence accumulated that all landfills leak and that there is no affordable way to build a safe landfill. (You might build a long-lived landfill inside a huge 12"-thick titanium box welded shut, but no one could afford it.)

As an alternative, industry and its acolytes in government decided to build thousands of hazardous waste incinerators. To show that these were safe, EPA developed an elaborate "trial burn" system. Incinerator operators pick representative wastes that are supposedly harder to destroy than the other wastes that would be routinely burned. These harder-to-destroy wastes are called POHCs (principal organic hazardous constituents). During the trial burn, POHCs in nearly pure form are fed into the incinerator and what comes out the smoke stack is compared to what was fed into the furnace. A simple calculation then reveals the "destruction and removal efficiency" (DRE) of the machine. EPA established regulations REQUIRING 99.99% DRE FOR ALL WASTES FED INTO HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATORS and they told everyone who would listen that 99.99% DRE of the POHCs proved beyond any doubt that 99.99% DRE would be achieved for all wastes fed into the furnace.

In late 1992, this was all revealed as a fraud and a ruse. Greenpeace chemist Pat Costner unearthed two EPA studies, conducted in 1984 and 1985, showing that no incinerators could meet the established regulations. Any chemical present in the waste stream at a concentration below 1000 parts per million (ppm) cannot be destroyed with 99.99% DRE. Since thousands of incinerators had been sold to the public by industry and by EPA as "safe" specifically to destroy dangerous wastes present in concentrations lower than 1000 ppm, it became clear that this was a public health scandal of considerable proportions.

In response to the public flap, on September 22, 1992, EPA's director of the office of solid waste, Sylvia Lowrance, wrote a memo to all 10 regional EPA offices, suggesting ways to avoid acting upon the discrepancy between the requirements of the law and the actual operating characteristics of hazardous waste incinerators. It seems clear that, according to EPA's regulations, all hazardous waste incinerators should be shut down because the regulations say, "the DRE performance standard applies to each waste feed burned." Since no incinerators can meet the 99.99% requirement for all wastes burned, no incinerator meets EPA regulations. Ms. Lowrance's memo seemed to be aimed at showing EPA staff how to evade the requirements of the law--a kind of guidance EPA officials are not supposed to give.

On December 22, in a letter to the EPA inspector general John Martin, EPA employee William Sanjour formally charged Sylvia Lowrance with violations of law.[2] The inspector general is now required to conduct an investigation.

Our hat is off to Mr. Sanjour for his fortitude and persistence. Let us hope the new administration recognizes what an asset he is to the EPA. Many of the suggestions in his 1992 report, WHY EPA IS LIKE IT IS AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT, could make any government agency work better.[3]

Lead in Children

The federal Centers for Disease Control in 1992 officially reduced the amount of lead that is considered "acceptable" in children's blood, from 25 micrograms per deciliter to 10 micrograms per deciliter.

As the year wound down, a spate of studies began appearing in medical journals indicating that even 10 micrograms per deciliter is associated with permanent loss of IQ. The NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE reported October 29 (pgs. 1279 and 1308) that low levels of lead in young children don't merely "delay neurobehavioral or motor development" but actually produce "deficits in intelligence." At least three studies of children exposed to lead before the age of 4 have now shown that the damage is measurable during school years, ages seven to 10. One study of well-to-do children in Boston showed that each increase of 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood at age 2 produced a six-point decrease in IQ at age 10. This held true in the range 0 to 25 micrograms per deciliter, which means that a child with 25 micrograms of lead in his or her blood at age 2 would lose 15 IQ points compared to what his or her IQ would otherwise have been. Such a decrease might not debilitate a person who started with a 125 IQ, but it would devastate a person at the lower end of the normal range of intelligence. A person pushed from a 90 to a 75 IQ would face a lifetime of serious learning disabilities and expensive remedial help.

Late in 1992, the Bush administration responded by issuing rules requiring all children on Medicaid to be screened for lead. However, the new rules allowed states to continue using outmoded screening techniques that cannot detect lead below 25 micrograms per deciliter, no doubt intended as a kinder, gentler way of continuing to ignore this menacing problem.[4]

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

===============

[1] Philip J. Landrigan, ENVIRONMENTAL NEUROTOXICOLOGY (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992), pg. 2.

[2] We covered this story in greater detail in RHWN #280 and #312a. William Sanjour's 8-page letter to the inspector general is available from us for $4.00.

[3] William Sanjour, WHY EPA IS LIKE IT IS AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT (Annapolis, Md.: Environmental Research Foundation, 1992); $15 from E.R.F., P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403-7036; phone (410) 263-1584.

[4] N.Y. TIMES September 13, 1992, pg. A1.

Descriptor terms: cancer; carcinogens; health; exposure; studies; testing; nas-nrc; immune system damage; risk assessment; hazardous materials; immune system; reproductive system; reproductive hazards; landfilling; hazardous waste incineration; waste treatment technologies; waste disposal technologies; lead; cdc;

#314a: Cement and Kiln Dust Contain Dioxins

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #314
---December 2, 1992---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com =================================Original Source========================

During routine preparation of a REPORT TO CONGRESS ON CEMENT KILNS, the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has learned that cement and cement kiln dust contain dioxins and furans (both of which are powerful poisons in animals and humans), according to a briefing document dated October 8, 1992, prepared by EPA staff for EPA's Director of Solid Waste, Sylvia Lowrance. The October briefing document also says 20 percent of the cement kiln dust that EPA tested contains the non-natural radioactive elements plutonium-238, plutonium-239 and cesium-137. Dioxins are the most powerful carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) ever tested in laboratory animals; plutonium is the most potent carcinogen in humans ever discovered.

Cement is a principal component of pipe often used to distribute drinking water in many American cities. Cement kiln dust is a byproduct of cement manufacture and is routinely given or sold to farmers as a soil treatment, or is discarded into pits or is piled on the ground near cement kilns in an uncontrolled fashion. According to Bill Schoenborn, an EPA staff member working on the REPORT TO CONGRESS, about 6 million tons of kiln dust is disposed of each year by cement kilns, 5.1 million tons of it buried on-site, and 900,000 tons of it shipped off-site for use in stabilizing other wastes (such as sewage sludge) or as a soil additive on farms. Cement kiln dust has previously been reported to contaminate groundwater with the toxic metals lead and chromium,[1] but until now no one has reported dioxins, furans, plutonium or cesium-137 in cement or cement kiln dust.

The REPORT TO CONGRESS is required by the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the nation's basic hazardous waste law. Like mine wastes, cement kiln dust was initially exempt from RCRA because it is a high-volume waste presumed to be low in toxicity. Cement clinker (that is to say, cement itself) is exempt from RCRA because it is a product, not a waste. Section 8002(o) of RCRA required EPA to study cement kiln dust and to write a report for Congress on its findings. For several years, EPA dragged its feet preparing the report. Then Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) brought a lawsuit, and now EPA is under a court order to finish the report by April, 1993.

In the course of preparing the REPORT TO CONGRESS, EPA randomly selected 15 cement manufacturing plants (called kilns) for sampling, out of the 114 such plants presently operating in the U.S. Of the 15 plants sampled, eight burn hazardous waste as fuel and seven do not. In recent years, cement kiln operators have increasingly been using hazardous waste as fuel, to reduce fuel costs and thus increase profitability. The practice has proved controversial. (See RHWN #174 and #243.) Opponents of the practice say they fear cement will become contaminated with industrial poisons. Cement is a key raw material in concrete pipe for water delivery systems, and in concrete block and other concrete materials used in construction of private homes, commercial dwellings, public buildings, bridges and highways. Seventy to 80 million tons of cement are produced in the U.S. each year, depending on market demand.

Sampling Results

EPA took 15 samples of "clinker" (the product of a kiln, from which cement is made), plus 28 samples of dust (the unwanted byproduct of a kiln). All samples were analyzed for metals, chloride, cyanide, fluoride, total sulfate, total organic carbon, moisture content, and radioactive elements.

Samples from six kilns (4 burning hazardous waste, 2 not burning hazardous waste) were tested for dioxins and furans, volatile organic compounds, semivolatile organic compounds, and pesticides. All chemical analyses were completed by EPA's National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory (NAREL) in Alabama.

Dioxins and furans were detected in all samples of "clinker" and all samples of kiln dust analyzed for these compounds. The October briefing document says that the dioxin molecule known as 2,3,7,8-TCDD, the most potent poison in the dioxin family, was only identified in samples from kilns burning hazardous waste. Other dioxins were found in samples from kilns not burning hazardous waste, but no 2,3,7,8-TCDD. However, the October briefing document says it is not possible to generalize these differences to the entire 114 operating cement kilns.

Samples of cement kiln "clinker" did not contain pesticides or semivolatile organics. Clinker was not analyzed for volatile organics. On the other hand, cement kiln dust contained amounts of the volatile organics benzene and acetonitrile that exceeded RCRA limits "in a number of the samples of hazardous waste burners" but not in samples from kilns not burning hazardous wastes. The dust from one kiln not burning hazardous waste proved to be high in methylene chloride, according to the October briefing document.

These findings lend support to the view that burning hazardous waste in a cement kiln increases the amount and potency of toxins in the resulting cement kiln dust and perhaps in the cement itself.

At three kilns (2 burning hazardous waste, one not burning hazardous waste) levels of naturally-occurring radioactive radium-226 exceeded the cleanup standard for uranium mine and mill wastes (the standard being 5 picoCuries per gram). Cesium-137, a non-natural radioactive element, was present in the dust of 26 percent of the kilns tested (4 out of 15)--one hazardous waste burner and three non-hazardous waste burners. Plutonium-238 and plutonium-239 were detected in kiln dust samples from 3 of the 15 kilns tested. Each of these 3 facilities is "located near a DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] nuclear weapons production/testing facility," according to EPA's October briefing document. Plutonium and cesium-137 do not occur in nature but are created by nuclear bomb explosions and in nuclear power reactors.

A second EPA briefing document dated November 24, 1992, contains additional information about the problem of potent toxins being found in cement and in cement kiln dust. The document is titled "OSW Office Briefing on Cement Kiln Dust Risk Screening" and it contains a summary of a risk assessment that is being conducted by the EPA's Communications and Budget Division within the Regulatory Analysis Branch, Office of Solid Waste.

The November briefing document outlines two risk assessment scenarios: one in which cement dust blows off-site and affects a person living 750 feet from an active waste pile, and a second in which an individual is presumed to be living on top of an abandoned waste pile. No risk assessment was reported for the case of a farmer growing crops in soil to which cement kiln dust has been added.

Furthermore, no risk assessment is reported for the dioxins and furans measured in cement clinker, which it to say, in cement itself.

Based on the two risk assessment scenarios, the November briefing document describes amounts of toxins in cement kiln dust that appear to be acceptable, which is to say will only give cancer to one in 100,000 individuals so exposed. The November document lists 22 instances in which one or more EPA tests of cement kiln dust exceeded the criteria developed in the risk assessments. Criteria that are exceeded by one or more samples include: 2,3,7,8-TCDD, total dioxins, total dioxins and furans, total hexachloro dioxins, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, and thallium, plus the following radioactive elements: bismuth-214, cesium-137, potassium-40, lead-212, lead-214, radium-226, radium-228 and thorium-227.

The purpose of the risk assessments reported in the November document is to help EPA decide whether the agency needs to regulate cement kiln dust as a legally hazardous waste or not. Declaring cement kiln dust a legally hazardous waste would greatly increase the cost of waste disposal for some cement kilns, and thus might reduce the profitability of some kilns.

EPA employee Hugh Kaufman has previously charged that the agency has been "accommodating the regulated cement kiln hazardous waste incineration industry with nonexistent, or at best loose, regulation..."[2]

Now that EPA has found dioxins in cement clinker, and dioxins and radioactive elements in cement kiln dust, the agency will likely come under considerable pressure to regulate all cement kiln wastes as hazardous wastes.

For their part, citizens seem likely to start asking themselves anew whether kilns can be good neighbors.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

===============

[1] Jeffrey D. Smith, "Cement Kilns 1991," EI DIGEST (August, [1991),] pgs. 20-32.

[2] Kaufman made his charge in a letter to EPA chief William Reilly dated Dec. 7, 1990; on February 21, 1991, cement kilns burning hazardous waste became regulated under the so-called "BIF" (boiler and industrial furnace) regulations, which can be found in the FEDERAL REGISTER February 21, 1991, pgs. 7134-[7240.] See also FEDERAL REGISTER July 17, 1991, pgs. 32688-[32692;] August 27, 1991, pgs. 42504-42517; September 5, 1991, pgs. 43874-43877; and August 25, 1992, pgs. 38558-38566.

Descriptor terms: cement kiln incineration; hazardous waste incineration; bif rules; sylvia lowrance; cement kiln dust; plutonium; cesium; dioxin; carcinogens; cancer; lead; chromium; metals; rcra; risk assessment; edf; concrete;