=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #320
—January 13, 1993—
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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HOW HISTORY WILL REMEMBER MR. BUSH
In its sad, corrupt last days, the Bush administration tried to
inflict maximum damage on its most implacable adversaries, local
environmental activists. Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan
announced he would speed up the sale of 1000 acres of public land
to the state of California to allow construction of the
“low-level” radioactive waste dump at Ward Valley, near Needles,
California. The federal Bureau of Land Management (part of
Interior) delayed publication of an environmental impact
statement to grease the skids for the land sale. Dump opponent
Dan Hirsch, director of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, said the
unexpected sale “virtually assures” that the dump will be built
unless the courts or the Clinton administration can find some way
to reverse it.[1] The Needles dump is planned to be large enough
to hold the nation’s entire production of “low-level” radwaste
temporarily (that is, until it leaks out).
William Reilly, chief of EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency) made his own personal contribution to Mr. Bush’s final
assault on environmental activists. On January 8, Reilly approved
a test burn, now scheduled for January 13, for the notorious WTI
incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio–the world’s largest toxic
waste burner, built in violation of numerous state and federal
laws and regulations.[2] (See RHWN #287.)
Vice-President-elect
Al Gore had announced last month that the Clinton/Gore
administration would not approve a test burn until all legal and
safety questions about the incinerator it had been satisfactorily
answered. (See RHWN #315.) One of the issues Gore wants resolved
is who exactly owns and will operate the WTI incinerator–an
important issue since, by law, liability and responsibility
reside with the owner/operator. Some 40 different corporate names
have appeared on official documents related to the WTI
incinerator during the past 5 years–a shell game that has left
ownership and control shrouded in mystery. On December 24, 1992
EPA Region 5 Administrator Val Adamkus wrote to Blake Marshall,
president of Von Roll (Ohio), Inc., asking him: “Please address
the issue of whether VRI [Von Roll, Inc.] is an ‘operator’ within
the meaning of RCRA [federal Resource Recovery and Conservation
Act].”[3] Despite EPA’s continuing ignorance about who actually
owns and operates the incinerator–itself a clear violation of
federal regulations–Bill Reilly allowed the test burn by SOMEONE
to proceed.
But history will record that the Bush administration’s major
contribution to environmental destruction was its aggressively
lackadaisical response to mounting evidence of major dislocations
of Earth’s atmosphere–global warming, ozone depletion, and other
serious disturbances of atmospheric chemistry.
** During the Bush years ozone depletion was measured for the
first time over the Arctic regions in a zone extending to
southern Canada and northern New England where major populations
reside. (See RHWN #285.)
In late 1992, researchers in Great Britain and at Princeton
University published their conclusions, that increases in carbon
dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere–the main gas causing global
warming–will likely cool the stratosphere, causing greater ozone
depletion by CFCs. (The formation of ice crystals in the lower
stratosphere initiates chemical processes that deplete the
protective ozone shield, allowing deadly ultraviolet radiation
from the Sun to strike Earth’s surface.) They say it is likely
that the continuing CO2 buildup will contribute substantially to
the development of a major ozone hole over the north pole,
extending from time to time during the next 100 years (depending
on weather and other factors) over the regions of the north
latitudes where most humans reside.[4]
** In late 1991, NASA revealed that modeling studies of the
atmosphere led to the conclusion that a molecule called the
“hydroxyl radical” (containing a single atom of hydrogen and a
single atom of oxygen) has diminished somewhere between 5% and
23% during the last 200 years. If this is true, it is very bad
news. As SCIENCE magazine explained, the hydroxyl radical is the
“Pac man of Earth’s atmosphere.” Hydroxyl radicals are present at
very low levels in the atmosphere (hundredths of a part per
trillion), yet they provide an exceedingly important service:
“…gobbling up most anything that has been fouling the
air–carbon monoxide that leads to smog, methane that enhances
the greenhouse, sulfurous gases, and unburned oil. By oxidizing
and thus eliminating these contaminants, the voracious hydroxyl
radical serves as the mainstay of the global atmosphere’s
self-cleansing process, holding at bay noxious gases produced by
natural processes and, more recently, doing its best to mitigate
the worst excesses of human activity.”[5] The hydroxyl radical
removes methane from the atmosphere (thus reducing global
warming) and removes ozone-depleting CFCs from the atmosphere,
thus reducing ozone depletion. Reduction of the hydroxyl
radical–if it is true–is bad news indeed. Fred Eisele, a
scientist at Georgia Tech, and George H. Mount at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder,
Colorado, are developing techniques for reliably measuring the
hydroxyl radical, to try to confirm NASA’s conclusion that
hydroxyl is diminishing.[6]
** Also in late 1991, scientists reported a 10-fold increase in
the highest clouds on Earth, some 55 miles above the North and
South poles, a part of the atmosphere called the mesosphere.
Scientists joke that so little is known about the mesosphere that
it is sometimes called the ignorosphere, but since 1981
scientists have been noticing not only more clouds but also
unexplained high-frequency echoes from research radars.
Something is definitely going on in the mesosphere. Dr. Gary
Thomas at University of Colorado in Boulder believes the cause is
methane gas, which is increasing in the lower atmosphere (the
troposphere) at the rate of 1 percent each year.[7] Dr. Thomas
told us in an interview December 23 that during 1992 his methane
theory was widely publicized and has found broad acceptance among
scientific audiences. “No one has effectively challenged the
theory,” he said. Methane is a greenhouse gas, second only to CO2
in its ability to warm the planet; it is produced chiefly by
livestock, rice paddies, and deforestation. Dr. Thomas said the
mesospheric clouds would have to get at least 10 times worse
before they might affect Earth’s climate. He said disturbance of
the mesosphere is simply further evidence that humans are
interfering with ecosystems on a grand scale and in ways that are
poorly understood–a dangerous business.
** Until 1992, global warming had been predicted based only by
computer models. The models indicated a doubling of CO2 in the
atmosphere might produce a warming as little as 1 degree
Fahrenheit (F) or as large as 9 degrees F. But during 1992 Dr.
Martin Hoffert of New York University and Dr. Curt Hovey of
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California analyzed
climate data from 20,000 years ago and from 100 million years ago
(a record found in Earth’s geologic formations) and confirmed
what the computer models have shown. A doubling of CO2 will
produce a warming of 4.5 degrees F., they estimated, based on the
geologic record. (NATURE Dec. 10, 1992, pg. 573.) Such a rise in
a century’s time would be unprecedented in Earth’s history. More
dangerous business.
** Dr. George Woodwell, director of the Woods Hole Research
Center in Massachusetts, and one of the world’s recognized forest
experts, has emphasized since the mid-1980s that a small warming
will destroy forests, because they cannot adapt quickly by moving
northward.[8] Dying forests will release large quantities of
carbon dioxide that are presently contained in the living trees;
the released carbon will in turn speed global warming, destroying
more forests, releasing still more carbon dioxide, a viscious
cycle that humans would be powerless to stop. “There is urgency
in moving with deliberate and effective speed to stabilize the
heat-trapping gas content of the atmosphere before we lose the
capacity for affecting it and commit the earth to a cycle of
warming of unknown severity, speed, duration, and effects,” Dr.
Woodwell testified before Congress in early 1991. Danger,
danger, danger.
But throughout his watch, George Bush and his dutiful minions at
EPA slept on.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
[3] Correspondence from Valdas V. Adamkus to D.J. Blake Marshall
dated December 24, 1992. 3 pgs.
Descriptor terms: president bush; george bush; llw; ward valley;
needles; ca; radioactive waste; blm; epa; william reilly;
regulations; wti; waste technologies inc; east liverpool; oh;
global warming; ozone depletion; global environmental problems;
carbon dioxide; forests;