=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #287
—May 27, 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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THE BREAKDOWN OF MORALITY
While he was in California recently, playing golf and eating
caviar, Vice-President Dan Quayle announced that the cause of the
recent riot in Los Angeles was a breakdown in morality among
residents of south-central L.A.
Mr. Quayle did not mention it, but it is apparent that an even
more pronounced breakdown in morality occurred among the nation’s
leaders during the previous 15 years as they encouraged
white-collar criminals to raid the public treasury and thumb
their noses at government regulations.
A Case in Point: Crooks in High Places
The largest hazardous waste incinerator in the world–called
WTI–is currently being built in East Liverpool, Ohio. Local
citizens have been fighting the facility for 12 years. They say
it is located in a place that is simply not safe or even
sensible. The huge furnace is being built right on the edge of
the Ohio River, which provides drinking water to many thousands
of people. The site is in the 100-year flood plain and is
underlain by two high-quality aquifers (sources of potable
water). The site has previously been contaminated with 200,000
gallons of toxic chemicals which are presently being cleaned up
as construction of the huge new pollution-source proceeds. The
incinerator sits in a valley where thermal inversion conditions
occur frequently; a thermal inversion is a warm layer of air that
hangs over a cooler layer, thus putting a “lid” on the sky,
allowing a buildup of pollutants which would otherwise drift
away. The 150-foot WTI smoke stack sits below a bluff, on top of
which lie an elementary school and a business college about 1100
feet from the stack as the crow flies. Homes lie 400 feet from
the stack.
WTI is licensed to burn 176,000 tons of hazardous waste each
year. Legally it can emit 9400 pounds of lead, 2560 pounds of
mercury, 199,600 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and 157,400 pounds of
fine particles each year. Because it is licensed to burn
pesticides, solvents, and leftover chemical weapons (Agent orange
from Vietnam), it is a certainty that WTI will create and emit
substantial quantities of dioxins and furans.
WTI sits on land owned by a government unit called the Columbiana
County Port Authority, which was created by the Ohio legislature
in 1977. In 1979 the Port Authority leased land to WTI BEFORE
THE PORT AUTHORITY EVEN OWNED ANY LAND. The Ohio Department of
Transportation then bought land for the Port Authority using $4
million of Ohio taxpayers’ funds explicitly earmarked “to enhance
the use of Ohio’s rivers.” WTI will discharge liquid wastes into
the river but will not use the river in any other way; it is
explicitly forbidden from transporting wastes on the river. How
WTI will “enhance Ohio’s rivers” is known only to highly-placed
political tricksters. This is merely one among many
irregularities Ohio governor George Voinevitch and his cronies
have been willing to overlook on behalf of WTI.[1]
Federal officials are likewise playing fast and loose on WTI’s
behalf. When WTI sought a permit from U.S. EPA (Environmental
Protection Agency), the application for the permit was signed
only by WTI and not by the land owner, the Port Authority. This
behavior was just plain illegal.
The nation’s hazardous waste law is called RCRA [Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act] and the RCRA regulations published
in the Federal Register May 19, 1980 explicity say that a
“facility” includes “all contiguous land.” Thus the “owner” of a
“facility” explicitly includes the owner of the land.[2]
The preamble to the May 19, 1980 regulations explicitly spelled
out WHY owners were required to sign a RCRA permit application:
SOME FACILITY OWNERS HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN ABSENTEES, KNOWING
AND PERHAPS CARING LITTLE ABOUT THE OPERATION OF THE FACILITY ON
THEIR PROPERTY. THE AGENCY BELIEVES THAT CONGRESS INTENDED THAT
THIS SHOULD CHANGE AND THAT THEY SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND THAT
THEY ARE ASSUMING JOINT RESPONSIBILITY FOR COMPLIANCE WITH THESE
REGULATIONS WHEN THEY LEASE THEIR LAND TO A HAZARDOUS WASTE
FACILITY. THEREFORE, TO ENSURE THEIR KNOWLEDGE, THE AGENCY WILL
REQUIRE OWNERS TO CO-SIGN THE PERMIT APPLICATION AND ANY FINAL
PERMIT FOR THE FACILITY.
Despite these regulations, in 1983 EPA Region 5 in Chicago
accepted a RCRA-permit application signed by WTI alone without
the Columbiana County Port Authority and subsequently issued a
RCRA permit to WTI alone, a clear violation of EPA’s own
regulations.
Late last year, with local activists from three states nipping at
its heels, Region 5 EPA tried to cover its tracks. EPA regional
administrator Valdus Adamkus wrote to Senator John D. Rockefeller
IV of West Virginia on December 2, 1991:
“It is true that the property upon which the facility sits is
owned by the Columbiana County Port Authority,” Adamkus wrote.
“It is also true that the Agency was aware of that fact at the
time the permit was issued, and that the permit was issued solely
to WTI. In 1983 the Agency did not make the distinction between
property owners and facility owners.” Mr. Adamkus’s letter to
Sen. Rockefeller continues: “Since 1983, the Agency has changed
its policy. It now issues permits to property owners and
facility operators as co-permittees.”
It is evident that there was no such policy before 1983 and no
change of policy in 1983. When challenged to produce the earlier
policy, Mr. Adamkus’s staff could not.[3]
Having been caught in a violation of law, which Mr. Adamkus tried
to cover up with a lie, EPA’s next step was to break the law
again by adding the Columbiana County Port Authority to the WTI
RCRA permit even though the Port Authority has never applied to
EPA to be put on the permit. EPA has no authority to issue a
hazardous waste permit to someone who does not apply for one.[4]
In fact, the Port Authority has appealed EPA’s decision,
demanding that its name be removed from the WTI permit. It seems
the Port Authority (a public body) does not want its name on a
RCRA permit since it has no legal mandate to become a hazardous
waste permit-holder.
A most unusual situation. Or is it? The San Francisco office of
EPA (Region 9) faced a similar situation recently. Here EPA and
the State of California had issued a permit to a cement kiln to
burn hazardous waste. When the permit was up for renewal, local
environmentalists pointed out that the landowner had never signed
the permit application and refused to do so. EPA Region 9
refused to allow the RCRA permit to be renewed on grounds that
the law requires the landowner to co-sign the permit
application.[5] In making its decision, Region 9 explicitly
stated that EPA does not have the authority to waive its own
rules, which is precisely what Region 5 is doing in the WTI case.
According to the logic of this precedent, Region 5 should revoke
WTI’s permit because the land owner (the Port Authority) refuses
to apply to become a party to the permit.
It seems clear that, in the case of WTI, EPA Region 5 broke the
law, lied about it, then broke the law again trying to cover its
tracks.
What could cause high ranking career civil servants and
government attorneys to risk their careers, their pensions and
perhaps their freedom for the benefit of WTI? We can only
speculate, but we believe the answer lies in knowing the
background of WTI.
WTI was initially a consortium of investors put together by
Jackson Stephens who operates Stephens, Inc., in Little Rock,
Arkansas, one of the largest investment banks outside of Wall
Street, according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Mr. Stephens’s
personal fortunate is estimated to be $1.7 billion.[6] He was a
classmate of Jimmy Carter at the Naval Academy and was a heavy
supporter of Carter in 1976 and 1980. Stephens profited
tremendously by Carter’s changes in natural gas policy. Because
of Stephens, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (known
in the banking trade as the Bank of Crooks and Criminals) got a
foothold in the American banking industry. The WALL STREET
JOURNAL says it was Stephens who “suggested to BCCI in the late
1970s that it try to take over what is now Washington, DC’s,
biggest bank company, First American Bankshares, Inc.” In the
1980s, Stephens became a benefactor of the Republican party and a
member of George Bush’s financial committee. Stephens’s wife,
Mary Anne, served as Arkansas co-chair of the Bush for President
Committee. Stephens himself donated $100,000 to Team 100, a GOP
group that collected funds for the campaign. In May, 1991,
Stephens, Inc. donated another $100,000 to the Bush dinner
committee, according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL (12/6/91). Last
year Vice-President Quayle flew to Augusta, Georgia on a military
jet at a cost to the taxpayers of $27,000. His purpose: a game of
golf with Jackson Stephens.[7]
When Republican Governor George Voinevitch and EPA Region 5
administrator Val Adamkus, a Bush appointee, evade the rules to
let WTI get away with murder, they signal a breakdown in morality
that only the likes of Mr. Quayle could fail to notice.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D., and William Sanjour
[3] Personal communication with Cleveland PLAIN DEALER reporter
T.C. Brown May 14, 1992.
[6] Christopher Knowlton, “Of Bibles, Bonds and Billions,”
FORTUNE Feb. 12, 1990, pg. 112.
Descriptor terms: dan quayle; riots; wti; east liverpool;
incinerator; columbiana county port authority; rcra; jackson
stephens;