=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #242
—July 17, 1991—
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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VISIONS OF OUR CHANGING WORLD.
The Reagan-Bush years have brought tremendous changes to America.
Probably the most important of these was summarized by Lester
Thurow, dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Management: “When Ronald
Reagan became President, the United States was the world’s
largest creditor nation. When he left the presidency, we were the
world’s largest debtor nation. In 1980, we had a trade account
surplus of $166 billion; by August 1987, we had an indebtedness
to foreigners of $340 billion.”[1] By the time Mr. Reagan left
office, our debt to foreigners had mounted to about $500 billion.
It is the first time in history that an industrial power has
converted itself from creditor to debtor in peacetime.
Foreign debt has induced the owners of America’s assets to sell
off at bargain basement prices. The sell-off accelerated as the
1980s progressed–if “progressed” is the right word. The
individuals who sold their assets got fabulously rich, but in the
process, ownership and control of America has slowly moved
offshore.
In 1988, foreigners owned 21% of all Manhattan real estate, 32%
of downtown Minneapolis, 39% of downtown Houston, and a stunning
46% of downtown Los Angeles. Hilton hotels are now foreign-owned,
as are Holiday Inns. Firestone Tire is foreign owned. In 1988,
47% of all patents issued in the U.S. were granted to foreigners.
Norelco, Magnavox and Philco are owned by foreigners. General
Electric’s consumer electronics division is foreign-owned. Smith
& Wesson has fallen into foreign hands. Purina Mills, Sohio oil
and one-third of all the banks in California have gone to
foreigners. RCA Records, CBS Records and Capitol Records are all
now foreign-owned. The publishing firms Doubleday, Harper & Roe,
Bantam Books, Dell, Viking, E.P. Dutton, Delacorte, Grolier,
Charles Scribner & Sons–all are in foreign ownership.
Tiffany–the diamond merchant of New York–is foreign owned. And
of course Rockefeller Plaza is now owned overseas. United Artists
and Twentieth Century Fox are now owned abroad. This list of
course represents the merest beginnings of a full catalog.[2] By
1988, Germans owned approximately 30% of the American chemical
industry. One wealthy investor said, “We are much like a wealthy
family that annually sells acreage so it can sustain a lifestyle
unwarranted by its current output. Until the plantation is gone,
it’s all pleasure and no pain. In the end, however, the family
will have traded the life of an owner for the life of a tenant
farmer.”[3]
As Harvard Business School professor Carol Greenwald has said,
“When the history of the period is written, historians are going
to marvel at a great power surrendering its economic might with
so little resistance.”[4]
Of course these facts have everything to do with the policies of
Ronald Reagan, George Bush and the Democrats who control Congress
but what, you may ask, have they to do with hazardous waste?
Last week, I traveled to North Carolina to debate officials of a
company called ThermalKem. ThermalKem operates a hazardous waste
incinerator in South Carolina and is itching to open one in North
Carolina. ThermalKem has already signed a contract with the state
government of North Carolina. NC state government has agreed to
find a site for the incinerator; state government will then lease
the site to ThermalKem for $50 per year. All ThermalKem has to do
is build the incinerator and operate it for 20 years. When the
incinerator turns to rust, according to ThermalKem’s contract
with NC state government, the taxpayers of North Carolina will
retain ownership of all the toxic ash created by the incinerator
and all the liability attached thereto. Thus, state government of
North Carolina has shouldered the two major burdens of hazardous
waste incineration–the uncertainties of siting, and liability
for the toxic ash–leaving ThermalKem with little to do but ship
profits by the boatload to the banks. But whose banks?
ThermalKem is owned by a German firm called NuKem. Is this purely
accidental? ThermalKem says in public it will not take wastes
from foreign companies, meaning it will not import toxic waste
from foreign soil. But what about wastes from Germanowned
chemical companies operating on U.S. soil? Has America become the
dumping ground for the truly advanced industrial nations? In
North Carolina, one can argue, it seems to be so. Imagine it:
Year after year ThermalKem sends handsome profits overseas to its
parent firm, NuKem, while North Carolinians accept the
disease-producing air pollution, the industrial accidents, the
transportation spills, the unexpected releases, and all the
liability that goes with these things. And most importantly,
North Carolina accepts full responsibility for the ash and for
whatever damage that ash will cause in the foreseeable future-the
contamination of water supplies, the heartache, the disruption of
communities when the news gets out that “The dump is leaking” as
sooner or later it must.
Doubtless some highly-placed North Carolina officials, when their
terms of office expire, will take jobs with Thermalkem and will
live happily ever after. One hand washes the other. If it makes
anyone feel any better, we should acknowledge that North Carolina
is not unique (except in the frankness of its commitment to
helping foreign investors line their pockets at the expense of
the American environment): Increasingly the U.S. waste processing
industry is foreign owned.
The “cutting edge” of hazardous waste treatment technology is
cement kilns. They represent the fastest-growing segment of the
hazardous waste market. For 10 years cement kilns have escaped
regulation thanks to a loophole EPA (U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency) built into its hazardous waste regulations.
According to the regulations, if I send liquid hazardous wastes
to a cement kiln where they are blended with fuel and then
burned, I have “recycled” the wastes and they are thus exempt
from all U.S. waste regulations. New cement-kiln regulations are
in the pipeline but even these do not close major loopholes. (See
RHWN #174.)
If I send my wastes to a hazardous waste incinerator, the ash
from that incinerator is a legally hazardous waste and must be
landfilled at great expense in a double-lined dump where someone
must at least watch it. If I send those same wastes to a cement
kiln, the toxic ash is simply mixed in with the cement and is
then distributed into the environment, wherever the cement goes.
All liability simply disap-pears. The new regulations will not
change this.
During the past 10 years–the Reagan-Bush years-the U.S. cement
industry has fallen on hard times. American cement manufacturers
have fallen prey to rising fuel costs (again, because failed
leadership in both parties, in the White House and in Congress,
has left us with a crippling dependence on foreign sources of
non-renewable fuels).
Sensing a big opportunity, the cement industry is now moving like
gangbusters into the hazardous waste business. One
company–Southdown–has spent $100 million gearing up to burn
hazardous waste while making cement. EPA is applauding.
As the cement industry and the EPA prepare to spread toxic
incinerator ash throughout the American environment–into the
walls of our buildings, the highways we drive on, and the cement
pipe we use to deliver our drinking water–we must ask, why would
Americans willingly do this to themselves?
The answer is, it isn’t Americans doing it. The cement industry
is now 60% foreign-owned.[5] Foreign investors take the profits
while Americans are left to wander, leaderless, among the toxic
ash. It’s a nightmare vision. Unfortunately, we are not dreaming.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Thurow quoted in Kevin Phillips, THE POLITICS OF RICH AND
POOR (New York: Random House, 1990), pg. 122.
[2] This partial list is from Phillips, cited above, chapter 5.
[3] Warren Buffet quoted in Phillips, cited above, pg. 123.
[4] Greenwald quoted in Phillips, cited above, pg. 116.
Descriptor terms: reagan administration; foreign debt; foreign
investment; greenwald; hazardous waste; incineration; sc; nc;
thermalkem; ash; liability; nukem; international waste trade;
cement kilns; rcra; southdown; epa; regulation;