=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #330
—March 24, 1993—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
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N.Y. TIMES RESOLVES TOXICS DILEMMA THE
OLD-FASHIONED WAY: LINGUISTIC DETOXIFICATION
For some time, we have been warning our readers that major
polluters and their friends are preparing an assault on the
nation’s two major toxic waste laws (Superfund and RCRA, the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act). (See RHWN #271, #147,
#139, for example.) One or the other of these two federal
laws–and perhaps both–will be considered by Congress this year.
The NEW YORK TIMES began a front-page series on toxics and waste
this week, printing long stories Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday. [1] The Sunday article set the tone and the themes,
beginning with the statement that “many scientists, economists
and Government officials have reached the dismaying conclusion
that much of America’s environmental program has gone seriously
awry. These experts say that in the last 15 years environmental
policy has too often evolved largely in reaction to popular
panics, not in reaction to sound scientific analyses of which
environmental hazards present the greatest risks.”
The main message of the TIMES stories is this: The nation’s toxic
waste program is itself a colossal waste because toxic chemicals,
and especially toxic wastes, are not as dangerous as previously
believed and perhaps are not dangerous at all. Furthermore, we
got ourselves into this expensive mess because Congress didn’t
listen to the technical experts but listened instead to the
voters.
Here is the TIMES’S argument in an nutshell:
1) Billions of dollars “are wasted each year in battling problems
that are no longer considered especially dangerous.” Examples are
toxic dumps and asbestos in schools, the TIMES says.
2) “Since 1980, thousands of regulations were written to restrict
compounds that had caused cancer in rats and mice, even though
these animal studies often fail to predict how the compounds
might affect humans.”
3) There is a “new, third wave of environmentalism sweeping
across America” composed of “farmers, homeowners and others who
are upset largely by the growing cost of regulations that didn’t
appear to bring any measurable benefits.” The only spokesperson
for this “third wave of environmentalism” quoted by the TIMES on
Sunday is Richard J. Mahoney, chairman of Monsanto, the chemical
company.
4) This Third Wave has moved into “universities, city halls,
state capitols, and even into the highest levels of the E.P.A.
[U.S. Environmental Protection Agency].” At this point the TIMES
quotes EPA’s Science Advisory Board complaining that Congress has
passed laws based on “public perception of risk rather than
scientific understanding of risk.”
5) The main message of these Third Wave environmentalists is that
the “experts” have not been allowed to set America’s
environmental agenda; instead we have had “environmental agenda
setting by episodic panic.” In other words, our problem is too
much democracy.
6) As a result of Congress’s refusal to listen to the experts,
America is spending $140 billion per year on the environment
($100 billion by the private sector, $40 billion by government),
which is roughly half what we spend on the military. [2] Not all
the environmental money is wasted, says the TIMES. “Few experts
question the wisdom of spending $3 billion each year on new
sewage treatment plants.” But: “Many experts… question the
wisdom of spending billions of dollars to protect people from
traces of toxic compounds.” The TIMES then quotes Dr. Richard
Goodwin, whom they identify as a “private environmental
engineer,” who says we’re wasting money on toxic dumps. The
TIMES does not mention that Dr. Goodwin is a consultant to the
incineration industry who has conducted a campaign to have toxic
ash exempted from federal and state regulations. (See RHWN #189
and #191.)
7) “The toxic waste program stands as the most wasteful effort of
all” because “many of the [abandoned chemical dump] sites pose
little if any danger,” the TIMES says, without offering any
evidence.
8) To support its claim that dumps pose little or no danger, the
TIMES then offers not evidence but another unsupported assertion
(an assertion we’ve seen and evaluated previously–see RHWN #249,
#275, #290, #292): “New research indicates that dioxin may not be
so dangerous after all. None of the former residents of Times
Beach [Mo.] have been found to be harmed by dioxin, and two years
ago, Dr. Vernon N. Houk, the Federal official who urged the
evacuation [of citizens living in Times Beach] declared that he
had made a mistake.”
9) The TIMES continues: While we’re spending billions to protect
the public from relatively harmless substances like dioxin, we’re
allowing real problems to grow unchecked. Examples are mercury
in fish and lead in children, the TIMES says.
10) But back to the TIMES’s main theme: “perhaps no environmental
program has come under more criticism than the Superfund and its
progeny,” says the TIMES, launching into a lengthy description of
a Superfund site in Mississippi where soil was cleaned up to a
standard that would allow children to eat a half a teaspoonful of
it every month for a lifetime without getting cancer. (Half a
teaspoon a month for 70 years equals 3000 grams of soil.) The
TIMES ridicules such cleanliness as a goal: “E.P.A. officials
acknowledged that at least half of the $14 billion spent on
Superfund cleanups was used to comply with similar ‘dirt-eating
rules,’ as they call them.”
In making fun of the Superfund program, the TIMES fails to
examine the basis for EPA’s assumption that children need to be
protected from industrial poisons in soil.
The cleanup standard that the TIMES ridicules is based on the
assumption that children eat soil, which is in fact true.
Contaminated soil is an important source of toxic lead in
children. [3]
The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has studied
children’s behavior. It turns out that some children eat soil
directly and other children merely transfer soil from their hands
to their mouths. CDC estimates that 5 to 10 percent of all
children eat dirt directly (a behavior pattern called “pica”) and
that such children may ingest an average of 8000 grams of soil
during their first 5 years of life. [4] The best available
evidence, therefore, indicates that the EPA’s cleanup standard
(3000 grams ingested during a lifetime) may not be strict enough
to protect all children.
The first four articles in the TIMES’S series are remarkable in
several respects: (1) they never mention pollution prevention;
(2) they claim, or imply, numerous times that toxic chemicals and
radioactivity have not harmed anyone, but they provide no
evidence that this is true; (3) they ignore a large body of
scientific literature that contradicts their claims and
conclusions.
WE TOO BELIEVE AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS AND PRIORITIES HAVE
GONE AWRY DURING THE PAST 20 YEARS. BUT WE FIND THE Times’s
ANALYSIS WRONGHEADED, AND ALMOST ENTIRELY LACKING IN EVIDENCE TO
SUPPORT ITS ASSERTIONS. FURTHERMORE, THE Times’s WRITERS EXHIBIT
A BREATHTAKING IGNORANCE OF BASIC FACTS.
WE VIEW THE Times’s WORK AS AN OPENING SALVO IN THE CONGRESSIONAL
DEBATE OVER THE NATION’S TOXIC WASTE LAWS. INDEED, THE SENATE
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS OPENED HEARINGS TODAY
IN WASHINGTON, BASED PARTLY ON STATEMENTS AND VIEWPOINTS IN THE
Times’s SERIES. THE DEBATE IS ON. STAY TUNED.
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Keith Schneider, “New View Calls Environmental Policy
Misguided,” NEW YORK TIMES March 21, 1993, pgs. 1, 30; Michael
Specter, “Sea-Dumping Ban: Good Politics, But Not Necessarily
Good Policy,” NEW YORK TIMES March 22, 1993, pgs. 1, B8; Joel
Brinkley, “Animal Tests as Risk Clues: The Best Data May Fall
Short,” NEW YORK TIMES March 23, 1993, pgs. 1, 16; Keith
Schneider, “How a Rebellion Over Environmental Rules Grew From a
Patch of Weeds,” NEW YORK TIMES March 24, 1993, pg. A16.
Descriptor terms: ny times; superfund;
remedial action; costs; radioactivity; radiation; keith
schneider; rcra reauthorization; congress; senate committee on
environment and public works; limits of science; animal testing;
public health policy; asbestos; regulations; regulation; third
wave of environmentalism; monsanto; richard j. mahoney; experts;
democracy; waste; richard goodwin; dioxin; times beach; vernon
n. houk; mercury; fish; lead; children; ms; mississippi; goals;
priorities;