One company responsible for three contaminated sites Citizens battle Hooker Chemical dumps. | ‘‘The hazardous waste disposal ib lem cannot be overstated. The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) has es- timated that 77 billion pounds (35 billion kilograms) of hazardous waste are gener- - ated each year, but only 10 per cent of that amount is disposed of in an environ- mentally sound manner. Today there are some 30,000 hazardous waste disposal sites in the United States. Because of years of inadequate disposal practices and the absence of regulations, hundreds and per- haps thousands of these sites now pose an imminent hazard to man and the environment. Our country presently lacks an adequate program to determine where these sites are; to clean up . . . and provide .- facilities for safe disposal ... in the future.”” Sept. 27, 1979, Report on Hazardous Waste Disposal, Sub-com- mittee, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress. By RICHARD LANE A United States investigation into Hazardous Waste Disposal was reported on Sept. 27, 1979 by a U.S. Con- gressional Committee. They found that there are many common characteristics to U.S. waste dump sites: 1) The sites contain large quantities of hazardous wastes, 2) Unsafe design and disposal methods are widespread, 3) The danger to the environment is substantial, and, 4) Many sites pose major health hazards. They also found that the Environ- mental Protection Agency, the govern- ment body which is charged with pro- mulgating hazardous waste disposal regulations, with making an inventory of hazardous waste disposal sites, with priorizing waste dump clean-ups, has‘ ‘failed to meet the challenge . .. has failed to meet statutory deadlines for regulation . . . has failed to determine the locations of all hazardous waste sites .. . and has not taken vigorous enforcement actions.’’ (This is about former President Carter's EPA — more on Reagan’s later.) Three Hookers Hooker Chemical company’s Love Canal (Hooker #1) hazardous waste dis- posal site at Niagara Falls (written about here, earlier) has got most of the press coverage because it has been “‘... the largest and most notorious of America’s hazardous waste tragedies.’’ (New Sci- entist, Dec. 1980) But there are at least another 175 waste dumps in the Niagara Falls area. (Globe and Mail, Feb. 16, 1983). Niagara Falls, N.Y. is economically dependent on the chemical trade, and Hooker, with net sales that reached $1.7-billion in 1978, is the major em- ployer in the area, providing some 3,000 blue collar jobs. Michael Brown, a Niagara Falls, N.Y. newspaper reporter and author of the expose, Laying Waste: The Poisoning of America by Toxic Chemicals, found, Across Canada the Lougheed leadership. conducted. Trudeau invited to visit Moscow OTTAWA — Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of a high-level Soviet delegation to Canada to discuss agricultural relations, has delivered to Prime Minister Trudeau an invitation from Soviet Communist Party leader Yuri Andropov for the Cana- dian PM to visit the USSR. Gorbachev, who is a member of the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party, discussed international and bilateral. issues with Trudeau and the minister for external relations. He met as well with Opposition Leader Eric Nielsen and New Democratic Party leader Edward Broadbent. Limp condemnation of Keegstra EDMONTON — The high. school history teacher who taught his students that the Nazi holocaust in which millions of Jews and people of other origins perished under most bestial conditions was a Jewish hoax, was properly fired from his jobs earlier this month. By a vote of 4-2 however, he remains mayor of the town of Kckville. Premier Lougheed’s limp criticism of Keegstra and of Tory backbench MLA Stephen Stiles, a member of the Tory caucus has left doubt of genuine Alberta Tory opposition to the blatant racism out of Eckville. So encouraged was the Ku Klux Klan, they put up posters here and in Calgary. What the ugly events have forced is a statement from federal Tory MPs from Alberta who evidently feel they can’t stand the taint of racism connected with Church group opposing the Cruise OTTAWA — “Ordinary people have to take extraordinary measures for peace,”’ noted Sister May Jo Leddy, who with a group of Roman Catholics, Mennonites and United Church volunteers and church officials held a prayer meeting on Parliament Hill, May 24. The Ottawa gathering is part of the program of the Christian Initiative for Peace, which is delivering batches of letters from Canadians opposing Cruise testing in Canada and protesting subsidies to companies producing for war, such as Litton Systems. Letters urging steps to disarmament will also be delivered to the U.S. and Soviet embassies. Tests on hazardous chemicals wrong TORONTO — A Chicago laboratory which is facing four charges of fraud following a 1976 discovery of falsified tests, was the lab responsible for testing 212 pesticides used in’ Canada and the USA. An audit of Industrial Biotest Laboratories by the Canadian Department of Health and Welfare, and the U.S. | Environmental Protection Agency found 70 per cent of all the tests on the compounds were invalid. Currently, 113 of the pesticides are being reviewed by Canadian authorities, which has been estimated will take until 1987. Unnamed government officials say the bogus tests do not automatically mean the chemicals are unsafe, but they are alarmed that there were 1,400 invalid tests out of 2,000 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 3, 1983—Page 10 CAN ABA while investigating Love Canal for his , . those county and city _; book, that ‘‘.. Officials to whom we trust our collective well-being, repeatedly downplayed the troubles (at Love Canal) and even subtly discouraged me from pursuing and reporting on them ... health seemed a secondary consideration . . . in my news- room there seemed to be an unwritten law that a reporter did not attack or otherwise fluster the Hooker executives Not only do Hooker and the other large chemical companies at Niagara Falls get this kind of special treatment but each level of government plays a supportive role by:. — ignoring unsafe waste disposal practices, — giving early warning of upcoming health and safety inspections, — Aiding financially through low tax- es, — protecting monopoly interests in the legislatures, — making sweetheart, out-of-court deals when companies are caught red- handed, illegally polluting and dumping, — diverting inspection and clean-up funding to the war machine. Hooker has two other large dump sites at Niagara Falls that are both leaking and are hazardous to the people of the area, to people on both sides of the river and to people surrounding Lake Ontario. Hooker #2 — Hyde Park The Hyde Park dump is located about 1,000 metres (1,094 yards) from the = “‘It’s not my factory that’s polluting the lake. . It’s all those dead fish that're doing it."’ River, Lake Ontario, and the drinking water of over five million Canadians af@ Americans is left to the ‘good will’ 0 Hooker and the ability of the U.S. and” New York State governments to ei force the clean-up... Unfortunately --’ the clean-up plan ratified ... will only slow down ... the chemical sepa but will not eliminate in any way, t continued migration of highly ix chemicals, including dioxin, into L Ontario.”’ Hooker #3—S-AreaDump Between 1947 and 1975 the Hooke! } Chemical and Plastics Corp. (the same company involved in the Love Canal and | Hyde Park scandals) dumped 70, 000 ton ‘Ottawa refuses to enter the legal battle on grounds the - U.S. Government would retaliate.’ — Environment Minister John Roberts a | Niagara River, 4.8 km (three miles) from the American Falls, in the suburbs of Niagara Falls, N.Y. It covers an area of 15 acres (6 hectares) and is surrounded by industrial plants. The site was used by Hooker between 1955 and 1975, with a total of 80,000 tons (78,200 tonnes) of such chemicals as TCP (trichloro- phenol), (which invariably contains di- oxin), Mirex, Kepone, other organ- ochloric pesticides and their wastes being dumped. In 1978 Hooker began a clean-up and close-down of the Hyde Park dump. The EPA found Hooker’s clean-up measures insufficient so it sued Hooker _in Dec. 1979. By Jan. 19, 1981 (with EPA now in Reaganite hands) an out- of-court agreement was filed with the court for review and approval. Citizens’ groups, led by Canadian activists, at- tempted to intervene, claiming the re- medial strategy proposed in the settle- ment was insufficient as it was based on errors of interpretation of the hydro- geological character of the site. They asked the court to require that the - - agreement prevent migration of chemi- cals from the site. On April 30, 1982 Judge Curtin ratified the agreement without taking into account the objec- tions raised. Meanwhile, Canadian hydrogeologist Grant Anderson, and Environment Canada scientist Dr. Douglas Hallet, showed that chemicals indeed were seeping from the Hyde Park site, through the rock face of the Niagara _gorge and into the river. ° Toby Vigood (Canadian Environ- mental Law Association Newsletter, June 1982) found the settlement a fiasco because ‘‘... the fate of the Niagara (68,400 tonnes) of industrial hazardous | waste into the so-called S-Area dump !0” cated behind the Hooker plant in Niagal® | - Falls, N.Y. The wastes, as in the othe! dumps, are mainly organochlorine pes ticides including Endosulfan, Mire% Kepone and dioxin. The dump is on land: reclaimed from the river and is situate® only a few hundred feet from the Niagal@ Falls drinking water treatment plant! — Studies of the dump ‘‘show that larg’ amounts of chemicals have moved | ’ through the bottom of the site in all dire™ tions at different levels of the bedrock - - chemicals have been detected . 510 metres (560 yds.) out into the river 10° ward. Canada ... (and) ... chemic s have penetrated the concrete walls of i intake pipe ...’’ of the Niagara F drinking water treatment plant. tl and Mail, Dec. 6, 1982) EPA has sued Hooker and Niaga Falls, N.Y. because of the contaminaté drinking water and the leakage into the river. Negotiations are in progress for af | out-of-court settlement which will, suP_ -posedly, require Hooker to. remove oe control the chemical seepage into river.: | Canadian Environment Minister ste Roberts states that the S-Area dump’ «** | poses a greater threat to Canadian wale than any other U.S. ... dump . ¢§ covered to date.” But ‘‘Ottawa refuses | to enter the legal battle on grounds ™ | U.S. Government would retaliate” (Globe and Mail, Jan. 27, 1983)! J Fortunately, Canadian and U.S. ie zens’ groups are attempting to force “vith true clean-up, not a sweetheart deal w! an out-of-court settlement like the Hyde Park fiasco. F Richard Lane is the pseudonym of | working scientists.