Document 2RBY086RezyzGQw1KQZGG0z25

PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT fl' J tJi, t /.'O (lS NIWI AMO COMMINT carry more weight if the U.S. govern--- ment joins in it. In mid-July the chair man of the Council on Environmen tal Quality, Russell W. Peterson, Pollution and Public Health: urged the Justice Department to promptly and ``aggressively pursue all Taconite Case Poses Major Test means to eliminate this unwarranted potential public health menace." At this writing. Assistant Attorney General Wallace Johnson, who is responsible for /it essence. defendants are using the work force at (the Reserve Mining Com pany's taconite refining plant on Lake Superior\ as hostages. In order to free the work force at Reserve, the court must permit the continued exposure of [the citi zens of Duluth, Minnesota, and other North Shore communities] to known human carcinogens. The court will have no part of this form of economic blackmail.-- From the opinion by U.S. District Judge Miles W. Lord last spring in the suit against Reserve and its parent companies, the ARMCO and Republic Steel cor porations, by the U.S. government, the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and environmental matters, has decided that the government should join in the ap peal, but Solicitor General Robert Bork and Attorney General William Saxbc will have the final say. Before looking more closely at the question of whether the taconite plant should be closed, consider some of the circumstances of the Reserve mining CO --I -~J Michigan, and several environmental groups. Some bad problems of industrial pol lution have a way of dragging on year after year, with little or no progress made toward abatement, lnc pollution of Lake Superior by the Reserve Mining Company, a matter first taken up in federal-state abatement proceedings in 1969, has fallen squarely in that cate gory. For more than a decade, Reserve has been dumping into the lake each day about 67,000 tons of tailings, the residues from the grinding and magnetic separation process used to extract mag netite or iron oxide from taconite, a ern arm of Lake Superior are endan gered by asbestos--or asbestos-like--fi bers in the taconite tailings. Some are also threatened, the judge held, by fibers in the emissions from the Reserve plant's stacks. As the judge noted, as bestos is a proven human carcinogen, although its effects remain latent for 20 to 30 yean or longer before cancen begin appearing among persons who have been exposed. Judge Lord ordered that the Reserve plant be closed--and remain closed until Reserve has pre pared an on-land disposal basin to cate. First, there is the fact that two im mensely important natural resources are involved--Lake Superior on the one hand, and the Mcsabi Range of north east Minnesota on the other. A half century ago, the Mesabi was one of the world's greatest iron mining regions. But its once abundant and easily mined de posits of rich iron ore have now long since been depleted. The Mcsabi re mains an important domestic source of iron only because of its taconite rock, which the Reserve Mining Company, beginning its operations in 1935, was the first to exploit. LC C.J1 CD CD cn low grade of iron ore. And, even with receive the taconite tailings and has This initial taconite mining venture the trial judge warning of a possible stopped emitting fibers into the ambient was eagerly encouraged by state offi calamity and severely denouncing the air. cials, and Reserve had no trouble ob- defendants, the massive discharge of to .dump the tailings tailings may continue for several more fter.'Now only one of years. This shutdown order, aconite companies in the The Reserve Mining case poses two,, sensational news when ^APffU'^MaabL*R*rve is mining deposits of questions of overriding urgency and was in effect for only 2 days. It was the hard, gray taconite rock in tho area importance: First, how clear must the stayed by a three-judge panel of the around Babbitt. Minnesota. The rock scientific evidence be for a court to find U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth is transported some 60 miles by rail that pollutants from an industrial plant Circuit, and the Supreme Court subse from Babbitt to the refining plant at represent a threat to public health? Sec quently refused to vacate the stay. Silver Bay, on the lake. Reserve, which ond, how great must that threat be for The panel, in a preliminary ruling has deposits extensive enough to keep the court to close a plant, particularly reached after a quick analysis of the it in business another 40 years, is the one that is important to the local econ massive trial record, had concluded that only taconite mining company in the omy? Judge Lord's finding that the public Mesabi not using an on-land, closed- In this instance, especially, these health was endangered was not sup cycle system for the disposal of its questions cannot be answered lightly. ported by the evidence. The Eighth Cir tailings. The Reserve plant employs some 3200 cuit Court is not scheduled to review Lake Superior, used for the past 18 workers--virtually all of the bread the case cn banc until December, but. yean as a dump for Reserve's wastes, winners of the town of Silver Bay, Min given the public health aspects of the is the largest body of freshwater on nesota--and represents a capital invest matter, there is at least the possibility earth--350 miles long. 160 miles across ment of several hundred millions of that the leisurely pace of judicial events at its widest point, and up to 1333 feet dollars. will quicken. deep. The lake water has, until recently, After hearing more than 100 wit The states of Minnesota. Wisconsin, been considered of such purity that nesses during a 139-day Inal and re and Michigan and most of the other Duluth and most other cities have viewing over 1600 exhibits and 18.000 pages of testimony. Judge Lord bit the bullet. He held unequivocally chat the 200.000 people who live along the west plaintiffs arc again asking the Supreme Court to vacate the three-judge panel's stay of the trial court's order cloving the plant. Their appeal will doubtless it freely for drinking, without filtration or treatment. Also, this enormous lake is the centerpiece of a lightly developed and stiff largely wild region. Its rc- ocroasx IfH II markably clear water*, together with iha rtwky blurt* uml evergreen forest* that line its shores, represent an im portant recreational ami scenic re source. Huge though it is. Lake Superior is by no means large enough to assimilate Reserve's discharge of taconitc tailings, this being true from an esthetic and ecological standpoint as well as from a public health standpoint. The discharge is fivefold greater than the 12.000 tons of solid* generously estimated to enter the lake naturally each day from the inflow of tome 200 rivers and the ero sion of many hundreds of miles of shoreline. Indeed, this discharge of pol luting solids is much greater than any other in the United Stales and possibly greater than any other in the world. Contrary to the intent of the disposal plan which Reserve has followed all these years, the uulings have become widely diffused, `'despoiling'* (judge Lord's word) some 2000 square miles of the west end of the lake. According to the plan, the coarse tailings would im mediately drop out of the discharge slurry and form a della. This has in fact happened. The tailings delta ex tends some 4000 feet olTshore from the point of discharge and is nearly a mile wide. "Excessive Bureaucracy" Found in R & D at EPA Reading between the lines is not required to get the and. a Washington Environmental Research Center. message contained in the National Academy of Sciences' In essence, the Academy report says that there are recent report on the Environmental Protection Agency's some unnecessary bureaucratic layers between the di Office of Research and Development. With a bluntness rectors of the research centers and the assistant admin seldom seen in NAS reports, this one states flatly that istrator for R St D, and that these should be peeled away EPA's R k D planning and management procedures are to permit direct reporting from the centers to the top. "excessively] bureaucratic" and "must be abandoned." "The Assistant Administrator should have a small stalf The report, made public on 12 September, is a sum to perform only stalf functions and not to serve as a mary six-page document that was prepared hy a National filter or layer through which the [center] directors re Research Council committee headed by Robert W. port." the NAS-NRC committee said. Berliner of the Yale University School of Medicine. It Trakowski says that the committee's recommendations represents the lint fruit of the $5 million study that NAS "are worded in such a strong way that they imply a is doing under contract for EPA (Science, 23 August). degree of difficulty that I don't believe exists." And, It also represents a response to questions addressed to while acknowledging that the headquarters bureaucracy the NAS by Russell E. Train, the EPA Administrator. is overblown, he adds that this has long been recognized Train wanted advice as to the suitability of EPA pro by his office. "We are taking steps right at this moment cedures and organizational arrangements for fixing and to reduce the paper shuffling and the detail in the plan meeting R & D priorities--advice that could be especially ning process at headquarters," he says. timely now when a new assistant administrator for R It I) [i, however, there are require- is about to be appointed. , that make foe a sizable Train has written Philip Handler, NAS president^, must be ready at all times pressing appreciation for the NAS report'* "candor?i. r administrators cope with the stating that its recommendations will be "the basis tdr "problemih-^m air and water pollution, solid changes." Less grateful to the NAS-NRC committee is waste disposal, pesticides regulation, and the like--for EPA's Acting Assistant Administrator for R it D. Albert which EPA is responsible. "Our headquarters structure C. Trakowski, Jr. To hear Trakowski tell it, he is in the is dictated to a large extent by the interfaces with the position of one who has spoken softly and reasonably, other assistant administrators' offices." he says. only to have his words echo in a screech. "I personally Stanley M. Greenfield, a scientist trained in physical gave them every bit of information they gave back to mcicorology, served as assistant administrator for R k D us," he told Science. "Why the Academy chose to release from EPA's beginning in 1970 until this past May when it in somewhat sensational terms, I do not understand." he left to go into private consulting work in San Fran (According to the NAS report, the Berliner committee cisco. Trakowski is a retired Air Force officer who was was briefed by senior EPA officials. It also obtained the the founding director of the geophysical program at the views of a number of the agency's scientists and of Air Force's Cambridge Research Center. He joined EPA R & D office personnel.) as Greenfield's deputy several years ago, and, although The EPA research and development program is a he plans to remain with the agency, he is not a candidate large and growing activity. The fiscal 1975 budget of the for the job of assistant administrator. R&D office totals $140.6 million, not counting up to According to an officially unconfirmed but undenied $54 million in special energy RAD funds. There are report in the 15 September issue of the Environmental more than 1750 people employed in the R& D program, Health Letter, the new assistant administrator will be with the professional research staff constituting about a Wilson Talley, a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and fernwr third of the total. Headquarters stall people number White House Fellow who has been studies director for about 250. with the rest of the R i D personnel dis tributed among four "national environmental research centers" located in North Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, Nelson Rockefeller's Commission on Critical Choices for America. The new assistant administrator, whoever he may be. will And the sternly worded NAS report on his and Ohio, together with their ten satellite laboratories. desk when he arrives.--LJ.C. GO --4 CO CO CO Cl CO ;o cn The trouble his been caused mainly by the fine tailings, particles so minutes that some arc less than 2 micrometers (0.0000711 inch) in diameter. These tail ings were expected to form a '`density" or gravity-driven current that would quickly descend into the Great Trough, where the tailings would be deposited in a quiescent and harmless stale some 900 feet below the surface of the lake. The density current is a reality, but the complex natural phenomena affecting the lake--currents, thcrmoclinc*. wind and wave action, upwellings, and the like--nevertheless have caused the tail ings to be transported hither and yon. Under some circumstances, the den sity current breaks up and the failings spread out to form a turbid layer up to 37 miles wide, 3 miles long, and 100 to 300 feet deep. Also, tailings have settled to the bottom over wide areas beyond those designated in the disposal plan, smothering benthic organisms and thus harming the lake's ecology. In ad dition, there is the all too common "green water" phenomenon that occurs over many square miles of the lake when great quantities of light-reflective tailings appear at the surface. The several federal-state pollution abatement conferences that were held during the years 1969 to 1971 in re gard to the tailings discharge, and a subsequent (and also unavailing) abate ment suit in the Minnesota stale courts, all had to do with the kind of esthetic and ecological pollution problems just described. And, at its outset, the same was true of the suit brought against Reserve in federal court. What gave the federal suit a new thrust was the discovery last year that tailings fibers indistinguishable from amphibole asbestos fibers were present in the drinking water of Duluth and other communities such as Two Har bors. Beaver Bay, Silver Bay (all in Minnesota), and Superior. Wisconsin. The discovery came about largely by chance. One evening in December 1972. Arlene Lchto. a Duluth woman who or ganized the Save Lake Superior Associ ation. was attending a meeting when she happened to fall into conversation with Joseph Mcngcl. a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, whom she had never before met. Mcngcl men tioned that the asbestos libers suspected of causing a high incidence ol stomach cancer m Japan (the talc-dusted rice popular in Japan has asbestos contam inants) were similar to the fibers in the taconite rock. He showed Lehto a 4 OCTOBER 1974 Reserve Mining Company mines iaconile at Bobbin and refines it at bitter Bay. The tailings. now dumped into the lake, ultimately may be disposed at on land. report from the 17 September 1971 issue of Science that made the associa tion between the talc-dusted rice and cancer and that displayed a photomicro graph revealing asbettiform fibers. A.Seminal Talk Knowing that she was to speak the next day at a meeting of the Interna tional Joint Commission (a U.S.-Canadian pollution control body), Lchto stayed up well into the night looking up information about asbestos and its health effects. Her talk at the commis sion mcecting had a seminal effect. Sci entists from the Environmental Protec tion Agency's National Water Quality l aboratory in Duluth and the Minne sota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) immediately began to-teolg No the question of a possible asbestos con tamination of the lake and the air. On 15 June 1973, EPA announced that high concentrations of asbestos fibers had indeed been found in the drinking water of Duluth and other communities. Further, the agency, while not having yet concluded that the water was unsafe for human consumption, said that "prudence dictates that an alternative source of drinking water be found for very young children." Mean while. scientists of the MPCA had found asbestiform fibers in the ambient air of Silver Bay. Epidemiological studies conducted in countries such as the United States. Fin land, and South Africa have established that a high incidence ol cancer occurs holli among persons exposed to asbestos in their jobs and among those ex posed only environmentally. Forty-five to 50 percent of asbestos workers have been found to die of cancer, whereas among the general population cancer deaths represent not more than 15 to 20 percent of mortalities. A number of cases of mesothelioma--a fatal tumor that occurs in the linings of the lung and gastrointestinal tract--have been traced to markedly brief environmental exposures to asbestos, as in the case of a 30-year-old man (found on biopsy to have asbestos in his lungs) who had lived in the neighborhood of the Brook lyn Navy Yard as a child. Much of the evidence presented to Judge Lord as to the degree of exposure which people in Duluth and other cities are experiencing was alarming. In water samples analyzed at Duluth, the mean liber concentration was 12.5 million per liter. The limited ambient air sam pling done at Silver Bay, site of the Reserve plant, yielded widely varying results, but some samples showed con centrations of up to II million fibers per cubic meter and even up to 140 million if a sample taken at the top of one of the plant's smokestacks is in cluded. No safe level of exposure to asbestos has been established. Scientific proof is, however, lacking with respect to whether a high incidence of cancer will result from the ingestion (is op posed to the inhalation) of asbestos fibers. Before concluding that there is a sub stantial cancer risk. Judge Lord made an unusual effort to assemble and analyze the available evidence. To en sure that all aspects of the case would be presented, he had some court-ap pointed witnesses testify in addition to the large number of witnesses put on by the plaintiffs and the defense (the irul is estimated to have cost some $5 million to each side). ST 0095327 l 0<dSji60sJlS Irving J. SclikolF, director of the en vironmental science* laboratory at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, was a principal witness for the plaintiffs on the hazards of asbestos fibers in occupational settings and the environment. Others who testified came from a variety of institutions such as Mount Sinai, the Mayo Clinic, the Uni versity ot Wisconsin School of M~dicinc, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the National Institute of Oc cupational Safety and Health, the In dustrial Health Foundation, the Free University of Berlin, and the National Water Quality Laboratory at Duluth. Virtually every issue in the ease was contested. For example, Reserve wit nesses sought to show that the tailings disposal plan had not failed and that the tailings were not widely diffused; and, further, that the fibers in munic ipal water supplies were not identical to asbestos and hence could not be clas sified as a carcinogen. Judge Lord did not behave simply as an umpire calling balls and strikes, but intervened vigorously in the proceed ings, questioning and challenging wit nesses whenever he felt it necessary. Lord sometimes made his own independ ent analysis of technical evidence, as in personally studying a large number of transmission electron photographs and challenging Reserve's witnesses to point out how the morphology of the tailings fibers was distinguished from that of asbestos fibers. In this instance and in nearly every other, he concluded that the plaintiffs had made the more con vincing argument. In its preliminary review of the case, the three-judge panel of the court of appeals concluded that Judge Lord's "resoivjing] all doubts in favor of health safety represents a legislative judgment, not a judicial one." The panel further stated that, as in the case of an incon clusive study of tissue taken from re cently deceased residents of Duluth, the district court had chosen to disregard or downplay some important evidence undercutting the argument that a com pelling health hazard exists. Yet, in the opinion of attorneys for the plaintiffs, the panel itself ignored important evidence, especially in disre garding the health hazard from environ mental (as opposed to occupational) levels of exposure to asbestos fibers. In its brief filed w ith the court of appeals, the US Department of Justice com mented accrhly on the panel's finding that Judge Lord had strayed from the judicial path and made legislative judg ments. "We believe this court has re solved all close issues in lavor of keep ing the plant open and hence has done the very thing it finds erroneous in the District Court's action," the government said. On 3 August, Judge Lord, in a further memorandum issued in the Re serve Mining case, indicated that, had Reserve proposed an acceptable abate ment plan at the start of the trial last year, he would have been disposed to allow the company a "reasonable amount of turnaround time" without or dering the plant shutdown. Hut, in his view, Reserve had now forfeited any right to such consideration by repeated acts of "bad faith" chieily involving misrepresentations with respect to the feasibility of building an on-land dis posal basin. In one instance, the com pany had deliberately withheld from the plaintiffs and the court detnilcd engi neering plans for such a basin which had been prepared months before the trial, apparently against the chance that the discharge into the lake eventually would have to stop. Oo-Laad Disposal Demanded The court of appeals panel, although blandly saying that there are "neither heroes nor villians" >n the-Reserve Min ing ease, has itself held that Reserve must switch to an on-land disposal sys tem. In beginning to face up to the in evitable. Reserve hoped initially to get by with building a disposal basin in the Palisade Creek area, the site nearest the plant. However, that area is of such scenic- and natural value that the slate of Minnesota is considering bringing it into its park system; also, if a Palisade Creek disposal basin were built, one of the major retention dams f immense structures, up to 4JO feet in height, to be built of coarse tailings) would loom threateningly above the town of Silver Bay. It now appears possible that the disposal basin will be built at the somewhat more distant l~ax Lake site, although this is subject to the granting of a state permit after thorough environmental impact analysis. Once work finally begins, construction of the disposal basin will take more than 2 years and. according to Re serve estimates, cost some $242 million. But even if work on an on-land dis posal system should begin within the next year, the immediate public health hazard perceived by Judge Lord will not be remedied unless the plant is closed soon to slop :hc discharge of tailings imo the lake On the other hand. Phillip M. Cook, the chemist at tPA's Duluth laboratory who discov ered the contamination of municipal water supplies by asbcstilorm liber., believes that, if the discharge is stopped, the contamination will be reduced by some 9*1 o -rcent within 2 months. And. as for Rc erve'i 3200 workers losing their jobs because of the plant's closing, Judge Lord believes that that problem would be manageable. Many could be hired to work on building the disposal basin, and others could be hired by other companies in the laconite mining and refining industry, which is expand ing. There is no generally acceptable com promise solution available. If municipal water supplies could be effectively fil tered pending the change to an on-land disposal system, that would help to re solve the dilemma. But, to take the case of Duluth, some 2 yean would be required to build a filtration system-- nearly as long as it will take to build a tailings disposal basin. Furthermore, there is the separate problem of the contamination of the ambient air of Silver Bay. For Reserve to install the equipment necessary to filter out the fibers from its emissions also could take up to 2 years. The attitude of the public in the western Lake Superior region is curi ously mixed. Quite a few people, per haps as many as several thousand, arc concerned enough about the contam inated water that they refuse to drink it. Arlene Lchlo, the Save Lake Superior o;ganizcr, has put a special filter on her kitchen water tap. She knows of many others who either filter their water at home or seek uncontaminated supplies elsewhere. Some visit friends or rela tives in the country and get well water. A local broadcasting station in Duluth maintains a well for the public, and some people go there to fill up their plastic water bags or other containers. Although the city of Duluth is mak ing filtered water available to the pub lic at fire stations, the mayor has dis counted the risk involved in drinking the regular municipal water and most local people are drinking that water. State and county health officials have themselves indicated that there is no real health risk (during the trial. Judga Lord rejected most of the testimony of one state health otlicial as clearly un founded). Lchto has publicly charged state health officials with criminal negli gence. The Lake Superior pollution problem is a difficult one for Minnesota politi- SCIZNCC, VOL. IM> ST0 U95 829 cum because ol the |obs th_it who represents DlIuiIi and ine l.asc a,i>> ; v i\i i.-v. .cZ ssii.i..: a .jv.' be 'oil if the Reserve plant closed. Sen Superior region, maintains a position ol has never challenged ills compai)'s ators Hubert Humphrey and Walter consistent ambiguity. The United Steel position. "Laisor has sold out lor jolts, Mondale are keeping a low profile on Workers, which represents the workers no matter what," Lvhto says the issue; Representative John Blatmk. at Reserve, is siding with the company. The Minnesota Pollution Conuol Agency, supported by governor Wendell R. Anderson unJ (to |udge from a Minneapolis Tnt.une poll) by Blood Strategy Approved by HEW the people of the stale it large, is vigorously pressing its cu ,e against Pushed along by 2 years of stern and unrelenting pressure from the federal government, a group of seven private health-related organizations, including the nation's three major blood-banking groups, has come up with a strategy for giving the country a unified system of blood collec tion and distribution. The goal of the plan is to ensure adequate supplies of top quality blood at consistent costs throughout the country, with all-volunteer donors. The panics involved have agreed to give responsibility for implement ing the policy to a newly created body called the American Blood Com mission. The commission is to have built-in consumer representation as well as representatives from numerous health, medical, and blood orga nizations. The key to the plan is regionalization of blood services into what are called integrated regional programs (IKP's). The optimal size of these regions is yet to be worked out, but to qualify as an IRP. the blood banks and transfusion services in a given area will have to get together and show the commission that they cun provide a full range of blood collection, processing, and distribution services. The regional systems will be self-supporting (that is. most income will come from insurance pay ments) in line with the desire on the part of all parties to keep blood services the responsibility of the private sector. Each IRP will be de signed, at least theoretically, to fill all the blood needs of its area. Par ticipation in the system by individual organizations will be voluntary. When the commission gets going, the country can probably expect to be subjected to a heavy public education campaign to stimulate voluntary blood donation. It this is successful, two aspects of the present system will gradually fade out: one is commercial blood banks, the other is the complicated system of blood credits and nonreplacement fees which in volve a lot of fancy paperwork and put an added financial burden on patients who can'l round up donors to replace the blood they have re ceived. The federal government got moving on the blood issue in 1972, spurred by widespread publicity given to the seedy operations of some commercial blood banks and the evidence lhat there was a high incidence of hepatitis contracted from the blood ol paid donors. The Department of Health. Education, and Welfare conducted a study and came up with a proposed National Blood Policy which espoused a number of goals relating to efficiency, cooperation, a uniform system of data collection, and conversion to an all-volunteer system. HEW ordered the private sec tor to come up with an acceptable strategy and warned that if it didn't the government would have to step in. The federal threat now seems to have effectively bludgeoned private blood organizations into agreeing on a plan. With the plan approved in its broad outlines, the next step will be for the American Blood Commission to convene an "inaugural conven tion" probably within the next 6 months to work out some details. The existence of the commission means that there will be, at long last, one central body to coordinate private activities and act as a focus for policy-making in a field that until now has been dominated by (wo or ganizations--the Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banks--whose relationship has been characterized by ut least as much competition as cooperation (see Scicucr, 24 and 31 March 1972).--C.H Reserve and its parents, ARMCO and Republic. In a recent action, the MPCA asked Judge Lord to levy S7J million in penalties against Reserve for viola tions of its discharge period. The full Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals seems unlikely to reverse ns three-judge panel and lift the stay of Judge Lord's order to close the plant. Three of the court's eight judges are not participating in the case. Two own stock in cither ARMCO or Republic Steel, and the third is ill. Thus, at the five other judges, three already have decided, at least provisionally, that no compelling health hazard is present. With proceedings in the ease con tinuing to drag on, it is conceivable that the Supreme Court will now decide to intervene, despite its earlier eight to one decision (Justice Douglas dissenting) not to do so. A prudent -man would not bet on it, however. In sum, there is a very real prospect lhat the discharge of tailings into Lake Superior will not cease until late in this decade, with the citizens of Duluth and other communities having to ingest asbestiform fibers along with their drink ing water for another several years. Senators Philip A. Hart (D-M _'v) and Gaylord NcKon (D-Wis.) have found this prospect disturbing enough lhat they arc seeking a legislative remedy. At their urging, the Commerce Com mittee has reported legislation that would make clear that, in this and ether similar situations, the failure to prove that a demonstrable health hazard exists shall not be a bar to relief. As stated in the committee report, a court would, in the absence of proof, consider "the likelihood and magnitude of the risk of harm. . . ." In his testimony before Judge Lord. SclikolT compared the continuing pollu tion of Lake Superior with asbestiform fibers to a game of Russian roulette.,'T don't know where the bullet is located." he said. "But if we are wrong, then the consequences of lhat error arc disas trous. Moreover, the consequences are particularly had because, while we play the game, others will pay the penally." --Luthlr J. Cxrtfk 3* SCItNCt. VOL. II*