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Edited on Sat May-03-08 11:47 AM by caligirl
added even more dangerous chemicals to incinerate as time went on. Why would you think you can say something so blatantly untrue. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=172x23023 EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio - Four year-old Alex Estell has one of the world's largest toxic-waste incinerators at the bottom of his garden. Its smokestack is about 600 feet from his bedroom window. The incinerator is down on the Ohio River bank flood plain; the house is on a bluff overlooking it. Standing in his back yard, little Alex is eye-level with the 150-foot stack's 60-foot mark. Von Roll USA Inc., the Swiss owner of the Waste Technologies Industries (WTI) incinerator, has permits to annually pump 7,400 pounds of lead, dioxin and other hazardous materials into the air. Scientists have deplored the serious health risks, and Alex's parents, Bob and Sandy Estell, along with thousands of other families and 20,000 petitioners in the tristate (Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia) area want it closed long before it reaches full capacity. As a result, Alex's back yard has become what Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University (see accompanying story), calls "the central battleground for the toxic-waste incinerator permitting process." "There is roughly a half-billion dollars on that Ohio River bank, and a great many companies and individuals have a financial interest in that incinerator going into full operation," Turley said. "Those people are willing to spend a lot of money and spill a great deal of political blood to keep the citizens from succeeding." The hazardous-waste industry and its allies see East Liverpool and WTI as a battleground, too. They accuse environmental group Greenpeace, consumer activist Ralph Nader and Lois Gibbs of the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste of using the anti-WTI campaign as a fund-raiser. A recent Waste Technologies news release states that its opponents "are running on empty, financially speaking, so they are trying to get money flowing their way." Turley's affections are with WTI opponents in East Liverpool. Turley, who founded the Environmental Crimes Project, based in Washington, said, "The WTI case reveals something of a noble lie in our country. Citizens are assured that the federal government will require careful permitting and operation of hazardous-waste facilities, are encouraged to participate in reviews promised that affected communities will have a voice in decisions .
"What the WTI families did not realize was that you could prove your case, organize your community and convince your national leaders and still lose in the byzantine regulatory system. The Beltway's lawyers and lobbyists are paid to reverse such decisions in local communities.
"Ironically, the more public the outcry, the more the lobbyists and lawyers can charge to rescue investors and operators from the public whim. WTI has made a great number of people wealthy at the expense of the community of East Liverpool."
There are two questions: Is the WTI incinerator dangerous to public health? Is it, because of multiple transfers of ownership and the like, illegal?
Dangerous? In March 1993 just before the trial burn at which emissions would be measured, Federal District Court Judge Ann Aldrich, in a suit brought by Greenpeace, ordered the test burn halted on the basis that it would risk increased cancer deaths and "clearly may cause imminent and substantial endangerment to health and the environment." The 6th Court of Appeals reversed the decision on grounds of juristiction, not on Aldrich's risk findings.
Dangerous? WTI's operators say no: "The plant employs extensive emissions controls and monitoring systems that are setting the standard for the country."
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Even so, in July 1992 in Weirton, W.Va., vice presidential candidate Al Gore told WTI protesters that a Clinton White House would mean a presidency "on your side for a change, instead of on the side of the garbage generators."
In December 1992, the incoming administration reaffirmed its safety-first decision to block the WTI incinerator. Those promises turned out to be clouds of political emissions, smoke quickly blown away when Clinton and Gore apparently discovered that an original financier for WTI was Jackson Stephens, an Arkansas investment banker. It was Stephens who, at the last minute, provided the rapidly emptying coffers of Clinton's presidential campaign with a $3.5 million line of credit.
The White House referred NCR to Vice President Gore's office and to the Environmental Protection Agency regarding WTI and the timing of Clinton's discovery that Stephens was involved. By press time, Gore's office had not responded to faxed questions or phone calls.
Clinton washed his hands of WTI by dumping responsibility for the WTI decision back on President Bush. Then, as Clinton and Gore looked the other way, the company received permission for the trial burn.
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The Environmental Protection Agency appointee responsible for public liaison on WTI was Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman, a Clinton law school classmate and former legal counsel to the Chemical Manufacturers Association.
Sussman's role is an indication "that the process is so corrupt," said EPA whistle-blower and engineer Hugh Kaufman, that he petitioned Attorney General Janet Reno to open a criminal investigation. No action was taken. WTI's incinerator is now in "limited commercial" operation, said Bill Omohundro, spokesperson for the EPA in Chicago. The final phase of a WTI health-risk assessment study will probably be made known by August or September, he said.
"The reason WTI is still operating has more to do with its political connections than its legal foundations," Turley said. "If we cannot stop a WTI incinerator, with all its blatant illegalities, it is doubtful that we would be able to challenge any incinerator."
WTI counsel Charles Waterman III of Columbus told NCR that there are "Hazardous Waste Facility Board proceedings in Ohio to transfer the permit that WTI initiated - an ownership change." Meanwhile, Greenpeace has appealed the Nov. 19 dismissal of its case against WTI and, Waterman said, his firm is waiting to see whether the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will reconsider its decision.
Whatever happens in the legal realm, by the time Alex is 14, toxic emissions laden with tons of lead, dioxin and more could have descended on him, his two brothers, Matthew and Ryan, two sisters, Elizabeth and Sierra, on the other kids who live on Etruria Street and on the 400 pupils in East Elementary School across the road from Alex's house.
And it does descend, said Alex's parents. Because the smokestack is below the tops of the surrounding hills, for most of the year there is a classic inversion - the smoke goes down instead of up.
That is dangerous for several reasons, said Bob Estell, not least because estimates by the EPA measure the "safety" of the emissions as if the smoke were being dispersed over a 50-mile radius.
In a June 24, 1993, letter to Clinton, experts in the fields of public health, toxicology, environmental health and medicine said "the facility is located in a flood plain on the banks of the Ohio River - source of drinking water for millions downstream - in a valley with frequent air inversions that can concentrate airborne pollutants."
This is Catholic territory, the Youngstown diocese. Youngstown Bishop, James Malone in November gave congressional testimony against environmental racism (NCR, Jan. 14) and for years fought "big steel" over Youngstown closures. East Liverpool's 500 African American live in the immediate vicinity of the WTI incinerator.
Where is Malone on WTI? Nowhere,
He told NCR he had not spoken out against WTI, and "the principal reason, I think, is that there have been Catholic persons involved in both sides of the issue locally, and the message it seemed to me was being carried very well by the persons engaged there locally. So I did not interpose any statement of my own."
Catholic WTI activists such as East Liverpool school nurse June Archer, who once served on the diocesan peace and justice committee, contend Malone has been hobbled by local big-business threats against Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Charities drives if he spoke out. Malone's auxiliary, Bishop Benedict Franzetta, who grew up in East Liverpool, has been silent, too, report other local Catholics.
This tristate area is where West Virginia's upraised finger, Pennsylvania's western http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-14878916.html
http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/mcormick.html
Table of Contents
* Problem
* Background
* Key Actors
* Demographics
* Strategies
* Solutions
* Recommendations
* Key Contacts
* Back to Back to Environmental Justice Case Studies
Above map taken fromTiger Mapping Service, 1997.
The Problem
The Waste Technologies Industry, Inc. incinerator is located in the floodplain of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio. The surrounding area is elevated on a bluff, such that incinerator's stack is level with the windows of local buildings. The incinerator is located about 300 feet from homes and just 1100 feet from an elementary school. The location of the facility has been intensely criticized by citizens, scientists, and government officials alike. East Liverpool is located at the juncture of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, approximately 35 miles from Pittsburgh.
The WTI struggle is a regional issue that drew much national attention during the early 1990's, much to the credit of organizer Terri Swearingen, a citizen of Chester, W. VA. who coordinates the Tri-State Environmental Council. Tri-State Environmental Council became outraged by the various environmental problems that the WTI facility has created for several reasons. First, there has never been a comprehensive study of the potential health effects upon the surrounding community, either from inhalation of toxics or accumulation of materials (such as dioxin, a known carcinogen) in fatty tissues and subsequent transmission via mother's milk or the food chain. Also, the incinerator will be pumping hazardous chemicals into the environment, including mercury and other heavy metals. It is expected to emit 4.5 tons of lead per year, and this less than 400 yards from an elementary school and residential area.
Foremost, issues of environmental justice have been avoided by regulatory officials through this struggle, although it has been observed that East Liverpool and the surrounding communities are predominantly low-income and minority neighborhoods. These neighborhoods have already incurred adverse environmental effects from existing local industry. Government response during the reauthorization process for WTI as well as towards these concerns has been conspicuously slow.
Back to Table of Contents
Background
Waste Technologies Industries' hazardous waste incinerator was first proposed in 1977, and has been under severe scrutiny from its neighbors since 1980. Once construction began in 1990, an intense campaign against the WTI facility and incineration as a means of hazardous waste disposal commenced in East Liverpool, surrounding communities, and eventually the nation. WTI its self has been a topic o national controversy, and was mentioned specifically during the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. Clinton and Gore promised the American people that not only would the Clinton Administration never let such a facility become a reality, but they aimed to prevent the WTI facility from opening before questions regarding the safety and legality of its operation were answered. Vice-President-Elect Gore, along with five U.S. Senators and two Representatives, followed up on this promise by requesting a General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation of the facility. However, after sixteen years of community struggle after the incinerator was proposed, the facility is currently operating, despite an array of procedural and legal mishaps.
There have been repeated discrepancies in ownership throughout the permit application process. RCRA permits are not transferrable between parties, thus the Ohio Attorney General declared the permits invalid. Furthermore, the initial permit applications were not signed, and thus technically cannot be issued. The initial permits listed Columbiana Port Authority as part owner of the facility. Later, Columbiana Port Authority asked to be removed from the permit, and may have been listed as part owner simply because the land on which WTI sits was once owned by the Port Authority. The land then taken in emminent domain from the Port Authority, later to be sold to WTI. Emminent domain requires that a public entity show "proper public purpose" before it acquires property for public use. Whether WTI's incinerator demonstrates proper public purpose is obviously still at question by the community of East Liverpool.
WTI's facility seems to have escaped various environmental regulations. For example, an Ohio law passed in August 1984 prohibits any incinerator within 2000 feet of a school, hospital, prison or in a floodpain. However, WTI was exempted because the new policy did not |
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