Document 0J78aqVDmQzMV1GqyE6Lga97m

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #325 Providing news and resources to the Movement for Environmental Justice --February 17,1993 A SEA OF TROUBLES ENGULFS NC1NERAT10N The incineration industry has suffered a series of major setbacks in recent weeks, The federal govem- m ent's showcase dioxin-burning incinerator in Jackson ville, A rkansas-to which Bill Clinton personally gave a green light one week before he was elected President (see RH W N J)-w as shut down last week by a fed eral judge. Lawyers for EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) admitted to U.S. District Judge Stephen Reasoner in Little Rock that the Jacksonville incinerator could not destroy 99.9999% of the dioxin fed into it, as is required by EPA regulations, where upon the judge ordered the plant shut. It was a stunning victory for [Greenpeace chemist Pat Costner, who had been the first to reveal that incinerators could not achieve 99.9999% destruction (sec RH W N #312 and #280), and for local activist-citi zens like Sharon Golgan in Jacksonville who had fought th e incinerator proposal for at least six years. The nation's other showcase | incinerator-built by Waste Technologies Industries (WTI) on the banks of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, O hio-was fighting for its life in federal court in Cleveland earlier this week. Local citizens there have been-opposing the W TI incinerator proposal for 12 years. EPA 's Region 5 office in Chicago and Ohio state officials bent the rules,, and even broke a few, to give W TI a permit to start burning wastes (see RHWNf #287). The state of W est Virginia, local citizens, ana Greenpeace filed a lawsuit January 13 asking a federal judge to prevent W TI from conducting a "test burn."1 As soon as a test burn is completed, the W TI incinerator can begin commercial operation for up to a year while EPA eval uates the test results. (Vice-President A1 Gore said December 7,1992, that he and Mr. Clinton would stop W TI from proceeding until a study was completed of all health issues,' and all legal issues surrounding EPA 's issuance o f a permit [see& fW W # 3 J 5 /]-b u t it now appears that Mr. Gore has changed his mind.) Federal Judge A nn Aldrich in Cleveland issued a tem porary restraining order against jW TI January 15 and set February 16 as the day she would decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction; which would prevent W TI from conducting the trial burn until a full court trial could be held.2 j As we go to press, it is not clear how this phase of the battle will come out. However, secret EPA docu ments that came to light during in court have raised serious health questions about every incinerator in the country, including solid waste incinerators. Background At issue in every instance is dioxin, which is created as an unwanted byproduct of incineration (and as a byproduct of other industrial processes, such as pulp and paper1manufacture, and the manufacture of some pesticides). In April, 1991, EPA began a major "scien tific reassessment" o f dioxin and discovered that ef fects of dioxin can be observed in hum an cells at the levels of exposure now present in the environment. In other words, there's already sufficient dioxin in the environment to produce observable effects in humans. T he Clinton/Gore administration knows this is a prob lem because a December, 1992, briefing document prepared by the E P A Transition Team says, "This [EPA's dioxin reassessment] is likely to be an extreme ly controversial document as there are new findings in dicating adverse reproductive effects at existing envi ronm ental levels." A Secret Risk Assessment and a Leaked Memo EPA 's position throughout the 1980s has been that incineration is safe, even though every incinerator is known to produce dioxin. To "prove" the safety o f in cinerators, EPA has used a technique called "risk as sessment." A risk assessment estimates the amount of dioxin being released, estimates various pathways it might travel through the environment, and calculates the resulting exposures o f humans. Finally, a risk assessment estimates the health effects resulting from the calculated exposures. In the case o f dioxin, over the years EPA 's "stan dard" risk assessment has assumed th at airborne dioxin only enters humans through their lungs. Dioxin that falls to the ground and is then incorporated into the food chain and eaten has always been ignored in EPA risk assessments. However, the EPA 's team o f scientists conducting the official "reassessment"of dioxin's toxicity published a draft report last summer called, Estim ating Exposure to Dioxin-like Compounds in which they clearly stated that a proper risk assessment for an incinerator must include all routes o f exposure for dioxin, not merely via the lungs.3 It is well known that dioxins accumu late in the food chain, and that meat, milk and fish are the major sources o f dioxin exposure for humans.4 W hen Greenpeace researcher Joe Thornton did his own risk assessment on the W TI incinerator, using the technique recom mended in EPA's draft report, inclu ding dioxins in beef and milk, he found that WTI posed risks 10000 times higher than EPA had calcula ted. To counter Thornton, EPA did its own foodchain risk assessment, which was not released to the public, but which came to light in co u rt5 The EPA's secret risk assessment concludes that dioxin from WTI is 1000 times m ore dangerous than the "official" pub lished EPA risk assessment says it is. Leaving aside the serious ethical issue of EPA refu sing to publish important health and safety informa tion about WTI, an internal memo from Richard Guimond, acting chief of EPA's Office o f Solid Waste and Emergency Response, dated January 22,1993, leaked to Greenpeace, says, "There are veiy serious implica tions associated with adopting risk assessment proce dures based on indirect exposure routes for air emis sion sources."6 Translation: if food-chain exposures 000097 are now to be counted in incinerator risk assessments, many incinerators will be found to be unacceptably dangerous. T he new understanding o f dioxin-that it's already present in the environment at levels that affect hu mans--plus the inclusion o f food-chain exposures in risk assessments, plus the failure of incinerators to achieve the destruction efficencies required by regulations--all seem to ad d up to a mushrooming debacle for the incineration industry. W hat are the alternatives to incineration? Jacksonville holds the key E PA scientists have known since 1985 that incinera tors cannot achieve 99.9999% efficiency in destroying wastes present in low concentrations (sceRH W N #280 and #372.), but EPA officials have stated at hundreds of public presentations since 1985 that 99.9999% could be achieved. Lying to the public carries no penalty, but lying to a judge is a dif ferent matter. At the hearing in Little Rock February 12, E P A was represen ted by U.S. Justice D epartm ent lawyer Ron Spritzer. Judge Reasoner said to Spritzer, "Indulge me for a moment. If I asked you to prove that you could achieve a six 9 D R E [99.9999% destruction and rem o val efficiency] on dioxin, could you physically produce technological data that shows that?" "No sir, we could not," said Mr. Spritzer.7 That damaging admission was sufficient for the judge. H e ordered the plant shut. EPA is considering appealing the judge's verdict, but they do not appear to have a strong case. In all likelihood, the Jackson ville incinerator is shut for good. The Jacksonville incinerator was in considerable trouble even before Judge Reasoner's decision. O n January 22, an Arkansas state official revealed that the incinerator was producing a larger volume of hazar dous waste than it was destroying. The machine had been set up in a residential neighborhood of Jackson ville to "destroy" 30,000 drums o f hazardous liquids left over from a defunct chemical factory that had made chemical warfare agents on the site for many years (most recently, herbicides for Vietnam). Local citizens had recommended moving the waste out of town by rail, o r simply building a concrete mausoleum on the site to contain the waste safely until someone found a way to detoxify it. But Arkansas and federal E PA officials insisted that incineration was the safest, cheapest solution to the problem. They convinced then-Governor Bill Clinton to put up $10.7 million o f state money to build and operate the incinerator. At the end o f a year's burning, 9,600 drums o f waste had been "destroyed"by the Jacksonville inciner ator, but in the process the incinerator had created 12,000 drums of salt and another 1730 drums o f ash (13,730 drums total) for a net gain of 43% in the volume of waste. Furthermore, the salt and the ash are so laced with dioxin that they are legally a "hazar dous waste" and thus cannot be taken off the site. "We did not anticipate this," said Doug Szenher, a spokesperson for the Arkansas state department of Pollution Control and Ecology. "The whole idea was that the salt and ash was to have been de-listed [de clared non-hazardous] and taken to a landfill site. It just didn't work out that way," he said.8 So after spending $7 million burning chemicals fruitlessly for a year, E P A is now spending $400,000 to build a 30,000square-foot building on the site, to store the hazardous salt and ash until someone can figure out how to detoxify it. So far as we know, this is the first above-ground mausoleum built to store hazardous waste. (See RH W N #260.) In Jacksonville, above-ground concrete storage will soon be a real, demonstrated alternative to incineration. [1] Greenwire staff, "WTI Incinerator Foes File Suit in Effort to Block Test," Greenwire VoL 2 No. 171 (Jinuaiy 14, 1903). Gnemme b "tho dally executive briefing on the environment* available on-line; phone (703) 237-5130. [2] Greenwire staff, 'Incinerator W TI Counters with Suit o f its Own," Greenwire Vol. 2 No. 172 (Januaiy 15, 1993). Greenwire b "the daily executive briefing on the environment" available on-line; phone (703) 237-5130. P I XJJS.Environmental Protection Agency,EstimmtingExpasuretoDioxinLike Compounds [EPA/600I6S8/005B] WorkshopReviewDraft (W ashing ton, D .G : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, August, 1992). [4] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, cited above, Appendix B. [5J Memo from William Fariand, director of EPA'* Office o f H ealth and Environmental Assessment, to Brian G rant, U.S. D epartm ent o f Justice, "WTI Screening Level Analysis," dated Feb. 8,1993, attaching a 21-pege risk assessment called "Screening Level Analysis of Impacts From WTI Facility" dated Feb. 5, 1993. [6] Memo from Richard Gutmond, Acting Assistant A dm inistrator, Off ice of Solid Waste and Emergency response, to EPA A dm inistrator Carol Browner, "WTI Incinerator Issues," dated Januaiy 22,1993.2 pjp. [7] Sandy Davis, "Judge Halts Dioxin Bum * tVcxtxcfArkansasDemocrat Gazette February 13,1993, pgs. IA , 13A. [8] Sandy Davis, "At vertac, more waste rolls out than in," Arkansas Democrat Gazette Januaiy 24,1993, pg. 12A. Rachel's Hazardous Waste News (ISSN 1065-4623) is pub lished weekly by Environmental Research Foundation (ERF) Telephone (410) 263-1584; fax: (410) 263-8944 Econet: erf Internet: 2784203@mdmail.com E ditor Peter Montague, Ph.D. Assoaate editor Maria B. Pellerano Circulation manager: Michael Gibbs Research assistant: Andrea K. Feameyhough Subscription rates: $40 per year for individuals anddtizen groups; $80 for government agendes; $15 for students and seniors with ID; $400 for businesses and professionals; in Canada and Mexico, add $6.00; in all other countries, add $11.00. All payments in U.S. funds drawn on U.S. banks. Visa & Mastercard accepted. Rachel's Hazardous Waste News is not copyrighted; we encourage reprinting so long as you send us a copy. Printed on 100% recycled paper. Environmental Research Foundation P.O. 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