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EA Reader Survey page 21 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION f SUMMER 1993 S4.00 . .-=i* 1993 Action j ALSO IN IHIS ISSUE: Clinton's first six months. The recycled paper chase. poou<o omscTS c . kii_ov>*a tt STARRING JOE l JANE CONSUMER mm n*nno *t a i/rvrrr i m w ! PSCGr oooor,3 I Al IH! N I III I K A . R I | N N A l l | < N | Failing the East Liverpool Litmus Test By Barbara Ruben In May, activists chained themselves to a mock incinerator in front o f the White House to call attention to the administration's promise to shut down WT7. administration did not step in even after Labor Secretary Robert Reich recommend ed that the case be appealed. Either Clin ton overruled his labor secretary or the Justice Department simply failed to file the appeal for its own reasons. A Labor Department spokesperson speculated that perhaps the case simply "fell through the cracks.'' The administration flunked another early test of its environmental mettle fol lowing EPA's announcement that ash from cement kilns burning hazardous waste routinely fails to meet federal health and safety standards established last August. Instead of stepping up the pressure for reluctant industry officials to raise their standards, EPA proposed to resolve the problem by simply suspending the kiln dust regulations. Since cement kilns bum roughly 70 percent of all hazardous waste incinerated in the country today, this pro posal could have far-reaching meaning for the impact of toxics on communities. And EPA's May announcement of an 18-month moratorium on building new hazardous waste incinerators can't make up for the agency's position in an on going battle over an incinerator in Clin ton's home state. At the Vertac site, a Superfund dump in Jacksonville, Arkan sas awash in dioxin-coniammated herbi cides left over from the Vietnam War, a hazardous waste incinerator has continu ally failed to meet EPA regulations. EPA and the Justice Department went to court several times during the winter and spring to defend the incinerator oper ator against citizens demanding the facili ty' be shut down. During the time Clinton was governor of Arkansas, a majority of Jacksonville citizens voted at least twice to not incinerate Vertac wastes, but Clin ton overruled them. Despite assurances from EPA officials that the incinerator would comply with all federal laws, it does not. Under law, an incinerator burning dioxin must destroy 99.9999 percent of the highly toxic sub stance. During an official test bum, the incinerator achieved only 99.96 percent efficiency, allowing dioxin releases into the community' 400 times larger than al lowed by law. Nevertheless, EPA and Arkansas state officials gave the incinerator the go-ahead, and this year citizens went to court to require EPA to enforce its own regula tions. EPA technical staff and Justice De partment lawyers argued in court that EPA's regulations didn't require them to actually measure the incinerator's ability to destroy dioxin. The judge did not buy EPA's argument and shut the incinerator down. The decision was appealed, and the matter is still pending in federal court. Sharon Golgan, the leader of the Jack sonville Mothers and Children Defense Fund, and a plaintiff against the Vertac incinerator, was leaving court one day this spring when she was asked if she noticed any difference between the Bush EPA and the Clinton EPA. She smiled with a glint of steel in her eye and said, "So far, 1 can't see any difference at all. Really none at all. ^c c he Waste Technologies Inc. (WTI) hazardous waste incinerator rises off the banks of the Ohio River, its bulky profile dominating the gray Ohio Valley skyline. The incinerator, built just 400 feet from houses and a quarter mile from an elementary school, has in some ways come to symbolize the administration's tangled grappling with balancing environ mental protection and economic recov ery. Despite a string of campaign trail promises to stop the SI60 million inciner ator in East Liverpool, Ohio from even conducting a test bum, the administra tion has done nothing to stop its opera tion, which began in March. "We view this issue as a litmus test for the administration, a test that goes be yond environmental policy to the way it sets priorities for the nation itself," says Terri Swearingen, who lives across the river from the incinerator and has helped lead a grassroots effort against it "Clinton ran a campaign based on putting people first, on making change. Well, all 1know is residents of the Ohio Valley certainly haven't been put first." The incinerator can legally emit 9,400 pounds of lead and 2,400 pounds of mer cury a year, substances that can wreak havoc with children's developing nervous systems. But the incinerator failed its March test bum, emitting four times more mercury than allowed. Still, EPA issued a permit for commercial operation. In addi tion, an EPA memo leaked to Greenpeace in February revealed EPA suppressed re search showing that dioxin contamina tion in local beef and milk would be 1,000 times higher than inhaling air near the facility. This means that dioxin concen trated in the food chain could cause 1,300 cancers per million people, a figure 130 times higher than EPA's risk assessment standard of 10 excess cancers per million. "If I were to write a novel or a horror movie or some fictional account of the worst place to put an incinerator, it would be in a valley surrounded by hills, on a flood plain, next to an elementary school. But in this case, it's all real," says Herbert Needleman, M.D., whose pioneering work in lead poisoning spurred the tightening of exposure limits. Still, the lure of jobs for economically C000G5 % ___________ ________ VOLUMEIV, NUMBER4 July/August 1993 FEATURES 26 Sunset for Chlorine? The word "chlorine" reminds most people of swimming pools, drinking water and laundry bleach. But far from America's washrooms and kitchens, this insidious chemical contributes to some of our worst industrial pollution problems. The Great Lakes, long a sink for factory wastes, are now the site of an ambitious campaign to b a n '' chlorine altogether. By David Moberg THIS ISSUE 44 Food and Health Brave New Egg Farm By Rosemarie Dorothy Bria 48 Consumer News Cool Strategies for Hot Weather By Mark R. Harris 50 The Environmentalist Helping Injured and Orphaned Wildlife By Laura J. Simon 54 Forum The Truth About Toxics By Dr. Peter Montague of a new -and not yet completely proven- concept in tropical rain forest conservation. By Diane Jukofiky DEPARTMENTS 4 E Word 56 Reviews Walking Down the Wild Where the Waters Divide Sky's Witness Reviewed by Scott Edward Anderson 30 Living Without Chlorine There are alternatives for 99 percent of the uses of chlorine. Here are some suggestions for de-chlorinating your life. By David Moberg 32 Can Marketing Save the Rainforest? People who live in tropical rain forests use hundreds of plants that Westerners have never seen, tasted or smelled.,,until now. Rainforest products are the hot new entry in the buy-and-do-good market. From cereals to buttons to sweet-smelling shampoos, they are also the result 6 Advice and Dissent Letters From Our Readers 10 In Brief Hazel Wolf: StUl Going After All These Years - Uncommon Scents Animal Crackdown - Unfriendly :Skies - The Wooly Adelgid That Ate New England - Good Hair Days Are Here Again 14 Currents Orangutans in Peril - Dances With Nuclear Storage Proposals - Coastal . Development-Talking About Trees 40 E Notes 58 The Green Marketplace 64 The Earth Exchange 68 Classifieds 72 Latitudes The World Bank's Bottom Line By Andre Carothers COVER: ninstradon by Dennis Irwin Section heading art by Randall Enos E MAGAZINE is printed on recycled paper E MAGAZINE la Indexed In The Reader*' Guide toPeriodical Literature, the Alternative Prt* Index, Environmental Periodical* Bibliography, u d on Infotrac. If yon have questions about yonr subscription or a problem with It, or need to change your address, please writs to: E MAGAZINE. Subscription Department, P.O. 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