Document NEjx8Rgv4Odrya8wkZNQ3dv2w

Environmental interests making a comeback in face of growing concern over toxic dumps 'fa /b r By BILL BOYARSKY nfflO SAN G fUSTM tfS Barbara, Calif., off-shore oil chemicals used in the Industry blowout. Television shots of the were damaging the underground A N A L Y S IS huge oil slick, and of men and water supply. The environment, one of the hot women fighting to save birds and Water is an example of the political issues of the 1970s, was or an oil well, are at the heart of the beaches, brought home the dan change. overshadowed in the fierce compe revival of the environment as a po gers of oil drilling, and the fragility Taste and freedom from disease tition for public attention as that decade ended. But it is making a comeback, becoming an important factor in political debates as homeowners become enraged about tox ic dumps near their communities. Knowledge, particularly great advances in testing, have uncov ered dangerous chemicals in areas where they were thought not to ex ist. Much more has been learned about how these chemicals endan ger health. Actual danger to health, instead of aesthetic objections to a freeway litical issue. Because of that, some observers in industry and govern ment expect waste disposal, water purity and some of the other cur rent environmental concerns to be a dominant domestic issue in next few yeaTs. If that happens, the answers will be much more difficult, and expen sive, than they were in the early 1970s, when the environmental movement emerged. The interest actually began In the late 1960s and became intense in January, 1969, with the Santa of the coastline. Public opinion polls showed that the environment was a top concern of 1970 voters, cutting across party lines. That carrying germs were the main worries of public and private water suppliers for years. Water in Southern California was consid year, President Richard M. Nixon ered pure, even though the water formed a Council on Environmen from the Colorado River supplied tal Quality and in April, 1970, the by the Los Angeles Metropolitan entire nation celebrated Earth Water District, was heavy in min Day, vowing to never litter again. eral content. Concern on those years centered on preventing more Santa Bar baras; halting construction of free ways that destroyed sceneries and neighborhoods; stopping dam con struction, and cleaning up polluted air and water. But, compared to what is known today, understand ing of what constituted pollution was then minimal. As often happens with widely popular issues, interest waned. The cycles of recession and infla tion,, the deficit, the decline of the America's industrial base, the competition with Japanese entre preneurs and the growing influ ence of such single-issue political groups as right-to-lifers, dominat ed domestic politics. But a decade or so ago, as more was learned about the new chemi cals, the Environmental Protec tion Agency began more sophisti cated testing, as did such state agencies as California's Water Quality Control Board. It was dis covered, for example, that dirt, leaves and other organic matter falls into the water of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and makes its way to Southern California. There, It mixes with chlorine used by the Metropolitan Water District to purify its water and, scientists discovered, pro duced a cancer-causing chemical. To remedy that, chlorine was re placed by another purifier, chlora mine. But that produced another side affect. The water was damag But interest did not wane in the ing to kidney patients on dialysis laboratories. More was learned machines. Hospitals with dialysis about the impact of the chemicals had to put in special filters. needed for the manufacture of ev This all means that the environ erything from automobiles to com mental debate of the 1980s will be puter memory chips. Silicone Val highly technical, as well as politi ley in Northern California, that cal, and will be much more diffi prided itself on its pollution-free cult for the public, politicians and computer industry, found that the press to deal with.