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SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC Inform. Educate, Insptre. Abandoned Dumps: A Chemical Legacy Author(s): Janet Raloff Source: Science News, Vol. 115, No. 21 (May 26, 1979), pp. 348-351 Published by: Society for Science & the Public Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3963969 Accessed: 05/10/2009 18:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sciserv. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. 1 Society for Science & the Public is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Science News. STOR http://www.jstor.org Cyanide from city landfill killed cattle kept downstream. Unloading chemicals at Palos Verdes, Calif, landfill. Pr>otos: EPA/Suquest than to merely seal them in 55-gallon drums and cart them off to a landfill. It's less expensive still to dump wastes along the side of the road when no one's looking; as a result, "midnight dumping" has be come big business in the industrialized Northeast where licensed, secure disposal sites are few and operating at capacity. Congressional hearings by Robert Eckhardt's (D-Tex.) Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations have even found signs that organized crime has en tered the illegal hazardous-waste dump ing business -- a sign of its lucrative na ture. Compounding the problem is a growing reluctance by local communities to permit the siting of new waste-disposal sites or destruction plants "in their own back yard." This attitude is aggravating an al ready serious shortage in the capacity of available waste-disposal facilities to han dle the growing volume of wastes. A report by the General Accounting Of fice in December said that an estimated 1.7 million metric ton shortage in available disposal capacity -- presumably among facilities managing wastes in an environ mentally acceptable manner--is believed to be a minimum projection and could even seriously underestimate the prob lem. The report was based primarily on data for 12 industries and does not ac count for the burden remedial cleanup of illegal sites could add if the government begins prosecuting in earnest. The figure also basically ignores wastes currently stored on a waste generator's own property--70 to 80 percent of all that is produced. The gao report says "onsite disposal generally has not been any better than offsite disposal. Based on epa case studies, 63 percent of the damage inci dents were attributable to onsite dis posal." Previous hearings by Eckhardt's sub committee seem to bear out this charge. Confidential correspondence from Hooker Chemical Co.'s own files, released in hear ings last month, documents contamina tion of groundwater and surface water at or near many of its sites. Surveys at its Taft, La., site, for example, confirmed migration of asbestos and chlorine into ground- and surface water. Other organic chemicals were found in groundwater there and at its Montague, Mich., site. Investigating the Hooker situation -- one not unique to its industry--the Wash ington Post found that the State of Michi gan is suing Hooker over contamination from its Montague dump. (Hooker has committed $11.2 million toward cleanup operations, but the State expects the en tire bill will total more than $200 million.) The Post also found that California offi cials are investigating what appear to be traces of pesticide residues migrating into well water from its Lathrop site. And the State of New York is considering a suit against Hooker for aiding in the develop ment of the Love Canal episode -- the cleanup of which will cost taxpayers at least $20 million; Hooker admitted recog nizing as long as 20 years ago that the site posed a serious health hazard but never brought it to the attention of the State, the federal government or the affected resi dents. There are signs that the states may be in a better position than epa to crack down on questionable hazardous-waste dis posal practices. Several critics within the Justice Department are concerned that rcra's "imminent hazard" provision, under which epa hopes to attack inactive sites, is so weakly worded that it may not stand up in the courts. James W. Moorman, an assistant attor ney general heading the Justice Depart ment's land and natural resources divi sion, announced last week that he has asked Attorney General Griffin Bell for a team of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to be assigned to environmental problems. He said in hearings before Eck hardt's committee on May 16 that his agency was hobbled in its effective prose cution of serious hazardous-waste pollut ers by a chronic shortage of investigators trained to discover environmental crimes and by legal authority in many cases too weak to permit the subpoena of necessary chemical company records. The problem of abandoned and inactive sites was not really anticipated in the writ ing of rcra. Plugging the loophole they represent is made an even thornier prob lem because lawmakers charged with the task are without exception understaffed and underfunded. A January gao report titled "Hazardous waste management pro grams will not be effective," documents the impact those shortages will probably have on implementation of rcra and re lated legislation. Neither state agencies nor epa have completed the first steps needed to imple ment hazardous-waste requirements of rcra, it says. Although individual states wishing to draft their own comparable legislation must make it at least as strong as rcra, officials in all 10 of epa's regional offices told gao that they could not pro vide the technical assistance to states needed to initiate programs. Eight re gional offices said they would be unable to provide assistance to either industry or the public on what the forthcoming federal laws will require. And six regional offices said they would be unable to review dis posal sites in their region to verify whether they are environmentally sound. To say that hazardous-wastes manage ment is a difficult problem is a pathetic understatement, epa estimates the cost of cleaning the nation's complement of si lently ticking chemical time bombs at $45 billion, roughly about what it cost to put a man on the moon. Defusing the bombs will take a tremendous national commitment, but people like Moorman find it hard to imagine a more serious problem facing the country. BOOK? BOOKS is an editorial service for readers' information. To order any book listed or any U.S. book in print please remit retail price, plus 50# handling charge for each book to Book Order Service, Science News, 1719 N Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. 20036. All books sent postpaid. Domestic orders only. ALBERT EINSTEIN'S THEORY OF GEN ERAL RELATIVITY --Gerald E Tauber, Ed -- Crown, 1979, 352 p., illus., $14.95. Reviews the theory of general relativity and presents Einstein's contribution to the scientific thinking of today in nontechnical language. Much of the contents come from Einstein's own writings, with contributions from leading scientists on their work on new devel opments in general relativity, relativistic as trophysics and cosmology, together with tributes to Einstein. THE CANCER REFERENCE BOOK: Direct and Clear Answers to Everyone's Questions -- Paul M. Levitt et al -- Paddington, 1979, 271 p., illus., $10. This book is a nontechnical account, in question-and-answer format, of cancer. Includes a description of the 21 most common kinds of cancer, and discusses proven methods of treatment. Wide spread cancer and terminal care are covered, un proven methods are presented and the future of research and treatment is explored. DANGEROUS PROPERTIES OF INDUS TRIAL MATERIALS--N. Irving Sax -- Van Nos Reinhold, 5th ed., 1979, 1118 p., illus., $54.50. Hazard-analysis information for nearly 15,000 com mon industrial materials. Includes description, for mula, physical constants, toxicity, flammability, ex plosiveness, disaster potential and explanations of countermeasures to reverse or mitigate possible effects. A GUIDEBOOK TO NUCLEAR REAC TORS--Anthony V Nero, Jr. -- U of Cal Pr, 1979, 289 p., illus., $25, paper, $9.95. Provides an introduc tion to nuclear power plants, describes types of reactors that are commercially available -- their basic systems, safety design and operational charac teristics -- discusses questions that are basic to future development of nuclear power and describes advanced reactors. HUMAN SEXUALITY -- Herant A Katchadourian, Donald T Lunde and Robert J. Trotter -- HR&W, brief ed., 1979, 343 p., illus., paper, $9.95. Biological, psychological and social aspects of human sexuality are dealt with thoroughly and presented in the light of the most recent research findings in this briefer version of Fundamentals of Human Sexuality. MASTERING YOUR MIGRAINE -- Peter Evans, foreword by Paul Turner and Derek R. Mullis, --Dutton, 1979, 112 p., $8.95, paper, $3.95. Surveys the spectrum of present knowledge of this malady that affects peoples worldwide with the exception of those in tribal Africa and discusses current treat ment in nontechnical language. NATURE IS YOUR GUIDE: How to Find Your Way on Land and Sea -- Harold Gatty -- Penguin, 1979, 271 p., illus., paper, $3.95. Shows how early explorers and primitive peoples found their way on long journeys by observing nature. Tells how you, too, can use nature through knowledge and observation of such things as birds, other animal life, weather, vegetation, snow field patterns and the position of the sun, moon and stars. SCOLIOSIS AND OTHER SPINAL DE FORMITIES -- John H. Moe et al -- Saunders, 1978, 691 p., illus, $37.50. A medical text covering the history, classification and treatment of spinal deformities (SN: 5/5/79, p. 298). MAY 26, 1979 351