=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #315
—December 9, 1992—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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AL GORE TAKES ON THE WTI INCINERATOR
Earlier this week, Vice-President-elect Al Gore weighed in
heavily on the side of citizens fighting the WTI incinerator in
East Liverpool, Ohio. On Monday Mr. Gore announced that he and 5
other senators have asked the General Accounting Office (GAO)–an
investigative arm of the Congress–to make a thorough examination
of WTI, to answer nagging questions about the safety of its huge
incinerator, and about the illegality of permits it received from
the Bush-Quayle EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] for
construction and operation. (See RHWN #287.) Mr. Gore said the
new Clinton-Gore administration will not give WTI a test burn
permit until all questions have been satisfactorily answered.[1]
It appears to be a major victory for citizen activists who
mounted a steadily-escalating campaign of nonviolent civil
disobedience to stop WTI. A total of 182 people have been
arrested so far in the campaign, which is not over.[2] At a rally
November 22, hundreds of people were lined up in the cold rain
waiting their turn to climb over the fence onto WTI’s property,
when the police intervened. No doubt those people remain ready to
act whenever necessary. Two young women, local leader Terri
Swearingen, 36, and Greenpeace staff member Beth Newman, 32,
still face serious contempt-of-court charges for urging others to
break the law at the plant gate. They could both be fined several
thousand dollars and be jailed for months or longer.
A multi-racial coalition of citizens from Ohio, West Virginia and
Pennsylvania has fought for 12 years to stop the WTI hazardous
waste incinerator, the largest ever built. With extralegal and
even illegal help from Vice-President Quayle’s Council on
Competitiveness,[3] and George Bush’s EPA and Department of
Justice, both of which went to bat for WTI AGAINST the local
citizenry on several occasions, construction was completed in
June, 1992, and the machine now stands poised to burn 176,000
tons of liquid hazardous wastes each year, plus 83,000 tons per
year of inorganic wastes,[2] on a flood plain immediately
adjacent to the Ohio River, 100 yards from a residential
neighborhood, 400 yards from an elementary school, in a valley
known for its stagnant air.
A spokesman for the WTI incinerator said Mr. Gore’s actions would
not affect their plans for burning waste, or for conducting a
test burn, now scheduled for January. Thus the Clinton
administration appears to be on a collision course with the
operator of the plant, a subsidiary of the Swiss company, Von
Roll, Inc., best known in the U.S. for its part in manufacturing
a Supergun for Iraq.
The NEW YORK TIMES, which ran the story in its business section,
observed that this is the first environmental policy decision of
the Clinton-Gore administration. The TIMES said it signals two
things: first, that Mr. Gore will have a leading role in setting
environmental priorities; and second that the new administration
intends to enforce environmental laws aggressively.[4] Indeed,
Gore’s press statement on Monday was couched in law-and-order
terms: “Gore’s request follows efforts by the Ohio, West
Virginia, and Pennsylvania lawmakers over several years to
persuade government regulators to comply with state and federal
environmental laws.”
But Gore’s action Monday may signal more than a
get-tough-on-crooks attitude. It may indicate that Messrs. Gore
and Clinton intend to try to rehabilitate the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and its partner in misfeasance, the U.S.
Department of Justice, and thus to continue the endless duel
between corporate crime and government eco-police.
Rebuilding the government’s eco-police force will prove to be an
uphill struggle, particularly at EPA where many Reagan-Bush
ideologues are now entrenched in jobs protected by civil service
laws.
Even though it has 18,000 employees and an annual operating
budget of $4.5 billion,[5] EPA is only a shell of a regulatory
agency. Its main function for the past decade has been to shovel
taxpayers’ money into the pockets of private contractors, known
affectionately in Washington as “beltway bandits.”
For the past decade, the effect of White House policy has been to
drive out good people and replace them with functionaries. Today
EPA has few talented, committed employees left, and fewer still
who are competent managers. Today many employees simply look upon
the agency as a place to do time while awaiting an opportunity
for a lucrative trip through the revolving door. Nearly all of
EPA’s substantive work is now conducted by private contractors,
many of whom do shoddy work for which they charge high fees. Of
course EPA is not alone in this. “Privatization” has been the
hallmark of the Reagan and Bush administrations, and it has
proven to be an expensive failure. As the NEW YORK TIMES said
last week, “In several agencies, particularly the Department of
Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, contractors are performing
virtually all the work.”[6] In fact, a report released last week
by the White House Office of Management and Budget [OMB] said the
problem is “endemic across all the civilian agencies.” OMB said
their investigation revealed a “culture” of federal agencies
eager to award contracts but reluctant to supervise them. Result:
“Contractors are squandering vast sums,” the TIMES said in
summarizing the OMB report which concluded that untold billions
of dollars of taxpayers’ money has been wasted and spent
illegally by private contractors on parties, vacations, and
sporting events. In almost every instance where auditors looked,
they found problems with contracts. For example, CH2M Hill, an
Oregon company that supervises the cleanup of hundreds of
Superfund dumps for the EPA, and more recently for the Department
of Energy, billed the government for parties, country club fees
for employees and the use of a corporate airplane, all of which
are illegal. In defense of his company, Lyle Hassebrook,
president of CH2M Hill, said he is “very proud of our
accomplishments” and denied all wrongdoing.
The problem isn’t merely wasted money. The work of contractors is
often shoddy. For example, the TIMES reported last week, “The
Government spends between $500 million and $1 billion annually to
determine the levels of toxic materials in soil and water and is
becoming concerned that the results are meaningless. In the last
four years, in the E.P.A.’s Superfund program to clean abandoned
waste sites, the Government has successfully prosecuted six
laboratories and 17 individuals for fraud, and three dozen other
laboratories are under investigation.”[6]
The TIMES says EPA has so little in-house talent left that it
cannot function without contractors. Indeed earlier this year a
contractor was paid $20,000 to prepare the official response to a
Congressional report that criticized the EPA’s improper use of
contractors.[7]
The Clinton-Gore administration will have a lot of rebuilding to
do, if they want to create even the APPEARANCE of a competent
environmental protection agency. But they should ask whether it
would be worth the trouble. Let’s face it: Even in their heyday,
the ecopolice could not even slow, much less stop, the poisoning
of America. Something much more fundamental than a refurbished
EPA will be needed.
In truth, we need something as fundamental as an amendment to the
Constitution, declaring that a corporation is not a natural
person, and is not protected by the Bill of Rights and the 14th
amendment. This would begin to level the playing field in the
struggle between predatory corporate marauders and ordinary
Americans. Corporations only became “natural persons” under the
law when the Supreme Court declared them such in 1886, so we are
merely suggesting a return to America’s past. Earlier generations
of Americans feared corporate power, and now it clear their fears
were justified.
To succeed in protecting the environment, the Clinton-Gore
administration (and the traditional environmental movement) will
have to admit that our problems go much deeper than mere
regulatory failure. Few dare speak of it, but let’s be candid:
the problem is a corporate culture that expects to get rich off
government handouts in return for shoddy work or no work at all.
The real welfare queens are the likes of Westinghouse, GE,
Boeing, Silverado Savings & Loan, General Dynamics, and Rockwell
International. The defense industry is justifiably famous for its
$600 toilet seats, but now that mentality permeates many, if not
most, large corporations. The standard rule seems to be: If the
law is in the way, bend it and, when necessary, break it. A
corollary is: If human lives are endangered, hire a consultant to
complete a risk assessment, then push ahead with the project.
These are not problems that will be solved by buffing up the
EPA’s image, or even rebuilding its scientific and managerial
talent. There is a fundamental imbalance of power in America,
which threatens not only our democracy but now even our lives.
Many corporations are larger and more powerful than all federal
agencies combined. As global competition puts a squeeze on
America’s traditional way of doing business (see Robert Reich’s
WORK OF NATIONS, for example), the urge becomes stronger to cut
corners and to save a dollar by trashing the environment. Without
fundamental reform, things will continue to go downhill at an
accelerating pace.
WE APPLAUD AL GORE’S MOVE AGAINST WTI. HE HAS DONE THE RIGHT
THING. LET US HOPE THAT IT PRESAGES A FUNDAMENTAL RE-THINKING OF
POWER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CORPORATE AMERICA AND ORDINARY PEOPLE.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Press statement from U.S. Senator Al Gore dated December 7,
1992. 2 pages. Available by fax from the senator’s office at
(202) 224-4944.
[3] T.C. Brown, “WTI Sought Quayle’s Aid,” CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
August 5, 1992, pg. 4-C.
Last week we announced we’re moving to Annapolis, Maryland
December 9. This is true. In fact, the deed is done. However the
address we gave is already obsolete. At the last minute
(yesterday), the Annapolis Post Office offered us a larger P.O.
Box, which we need to manage the quantity of mail you all send
us. Therefore, our correct mailing address henceforth is:
Environmental Research Foundation P.O. Box 5036 Annapolis,
Maryland 21430
Our phone is still (410) 263-1584, our fax is still (410)
[263-8944,] and the Rachel database’s phone is still (410)
263-8903; please dial in with 8N1, not 7E1.
Don’t worry, if you mailed something to the P.O. Box we listed
last week, it will be automatically forwarded to the new box,
which is only 2 feet away.
Descriptor terms: vice-president gore; president clinton; wti;
waste technologies inc; east liverpool; oh; citizen groups; gao;
congress; air pollution; epa; superfund; hazardous waste
incineration; waste disposal technologies; waste treatment
technologies;