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WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE EPA
by William Sanjour[1]
For decades, the Westinghouse Corporation disposed of its toxic waste at several dump sites in Bloomington, Indiana. In the early '80s, the dumps came under the aegis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program. While negotiations with Westinghouse over how to cleanup the waste dragged on for years, EPA, in order not to upset the negotiations, kept from the public the fact that toxic air levels near the sites were more than 15 times greater than the Superfund target risk level. At the same time that EPA was secretly recommending to its staff that they wear respiratory protection whenever on-site, it was assuring the people of Bloomington that they were in no immediate danger.
This sort of behavior is symptomatic of the bigotry festering at the core of EPA. In my 25 years with EPA, I have heard countless remarks and witnessed many heartless actions denigrating environmental concerns, environmentalists, environmental organizations and, most particularly, community environmental activists. While for the outside world, EPA puts on a face of concern and caring for the unfortunate victims of environmental pollution, the agency is permeated with contempt for these same people.
This prejudice manifests itself in countless EPA actions: in decisions to locate hazardous-waste facilities in already heavily polluted poor neighborhoods; in Superfund cleanups that ignore community concerns in favor of giving big bucks to favored contractors; in the agency's lax and corrupt enforcement of regulations governing polluting industries; and in its suppression of employees who advocate for the public interest.
Not all EPA employees are bigoted. In the early days, in fact, many people joined the agency out of a strong environmental ethic. But 27 years later, most of the idealists are long gone, having abandoned EPA in disillusionment. They have been replaced by careerists whose environmental ethic, if it exists at all, is subordinate to their ambition. This translates into blind loyalty to the organization, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. The Russians have a word for these people: apparatchiks.
In the minds of EPA personnel, the agency represents the public interest. Since environmentalists and community activists also claim to represent the public interest, EPA employees view them, in a sense, as competitors. The instinctive reaction of these employees is to attack and eliminate the competition. Hard-core, loud-mouth bigots are a small minority, but a much larger majority passively shares many of the same views.
Congress and the White House have tended to view polluters, especially the big corporations, the way the Salvation Army might regard a sinner: "He's not really bad. He just needs to be reformed, shown the light and set on the path of righteousness." This attitude filters down through all levels of EPA.
EPA is soft on polluters for other reasons as well. EPA personnel are much more comfortable with industry types, who are more likely than environmentalists to share their cultural background and outlook. Many EPA staffers aspire to high-paying corporate jobs through the "revolving doors" between government and industry. For instance, former EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus (a Republican) now works for waste hauler Browning-Ferris and former EPA general counsel Joan Burnstein (a Democrat) works for Waste Management Inc. It's not, however, just political appointees who make the leap. Literally hundreds of career civil service EPA employees have left or retired from the agency to work for the companies they once regulated.
Years of neglect and condescending treatment have made communities affected by industrial pollution deeply skeptical of EPA's ability and desire to help them. These poor and often minority communities have become more organized and militant, forming literally thousands of grass-roots organizations to contest EPA's handling of their environmental concerns.
These grass-roots groups include the Times Beach Action Group, contesting EPA's incineration of dioxin-contaminated soil in Times Beach, Mo.; Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins, fighting to close a hazardous-waste treatment facility in Winona, Texas; Citizens Against Toxic Exposure, fighting EPA's botched handling of the "Mt. Dioxin" Superfund site in Pensacola, Fla.; and the Ocean County Citizens for Clean Water, documenting pollution-related childhood cancers in Toms River, N.J.
A score of professional environmental organizations have evolved to assist and educate these communities. Organizations such as Communities for a Better Environment in San Francisco, Southern Organizing Committee in Atlanta, Citizens for a Better Environment in Chicago, the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, and the grand daddy of them all, Lois Gibbs' Center for Health, Environment and Justice (formerly Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste) in Arlington, Virginia. National organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club have also actively supported the grass-roots movement.
EPA has tried to stem this tide by continually inventing new initiatives of its own. Typically these efforts succeed in little more than spawning new bureaucracies. At headquarters, we have the Complaints Resolution Staff, the State and Community Outreach Staff, the Common Sense Initiative, the Office of Environmental Justice, the Outreach/Special Projects Staff, the Community Involvement Outreach Center, the Complaints Resolution and External Compliance Staff, the Alternative Dispute Resolution Team and numerous other communication and outreach branches. Every EPA regional office has its own Environmental Justice Staff, Alternative Dispute Resolution staff, Community Involvement staff and so forth.
While some of these initiatives, such as the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, do good work, most of them are more palliatives to blunt community outrage without changing the internal EPA policies that cause the problems in the first place. This, ironically, produces the need to create still more little bureaucracies.
One worthy EPA initiative is the Office of the Hazardous Waste Ombudsman, created by Congress in 1984. Robert Martin, the ombudsman, has gotten EPA regional Superfund directors to back down when citizens complained to him about the agency's policies. For example, Martin successfully intervened on behalf of the community in a dispute over a toxic dump site in Brio, Texas, in which EPA's cleanup methods would have exposed the community to more toxic chemicals than if EPA had done nothing at all. As a result of such actions, Martin is held in high esteem by community activists and is despised by the Superfund directors, who are more concerned with the prosperity of Superfund contractors than with the health of the public.
But these success stories are often short-lived. When EPA Administrator Carol Browner decided to augment the ombudsman function by creating 10 additional ombudsmen, one for each EPA region, many of the regional Superfund directors undermined the plan by insisting that the regional ombudsmen report to them rather than to Martin. Thus, EPA created a new "public outreach" initiative to kill one of the few initiatives that worked.
In a meeting last year of these regional ombudsmen, which I attended, participants bandied about disparaging and condescending remarks about environmentalists and community activists. The head of EPA's Community Involvement Outreach Center didn't interject. I'm used to hearing these kinds of put-downs at internal EPA meetings, but I was taken aback to hear them from the lips of the very people selected by EPA to investigate community complaints. These attitudes obviously affect EPA policy. I later learned from two different communities that one regional ombudsman was using his office to isolate and discredit complainants rather than to address complaints. EPA's cynicism and contempt for the public interest is not limited to the regional offices or to the Superfund program but is part of the institutional culture of the agency. In 1997, the newspapers were full of stories about Browner's struggle to win the administration's approval of tough new air standards for ozone and particulates over the vociferous objections of industry. the impression created in the press and fostered by industry was of a zealous agency hell-bent on forcing these strong standards on the country regardless of the consequences. Not mentioned was the fact that the Clean Air Act of 1970 required EPA to review and, if necessary, revise these standards every five years. EPA stopped doing so in 1979. Only after it lost a lawsuit filed by the American Lung Association in 1991 and was under court order to act did EPA write the minimal standards it thought it could get away with. The only zealousness shown by the agency was in using taxpayer money to fight in court for their right to disobey the law.
An EPA executive in charge of the Common Sense Initiative, founded to bring together industry, state and environmental representatives to reform EPA regulations, once commented to me--with a straight face--how much easier it would be to reach a consensus if only the environmentalists weren't involved.
EPA deals with its dismal environmental record the same way industry deals with its pollution: not by changing what it does but by papering over problems with slick PR. The only difference is that EPA uses taxpayer money to pay for it.
[1] William Sanjour has been an employee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since the early '70s, originally as a manager in the hazardous-waste office. In 1980, he testified before Congress on illegal EPA efforts to quash hazardous-waste regulations. Agency officials retaliated by transferring him to an office with no functions and no personnel. Since then, Sanjour has actively helped environmental and community organizations and has written numerous articles about environmental issues and EPA. In spite of persistent harassment by the agency, he continues to work in the public interest helping communities and his fellow whistleblowers. He is on the advisory board of the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network and the National Whistleblower Center, and is a fellow of the Environmental Research Foundation. This article has not been submitted for EPA approval and does not necessarily reflect the views of the agency.
This article originally appeared in the July 28, 1997, issue of IN THESE TIMES, a bi-weekly news magazine based in Chicago.
BAD NEWS FROM THE IJC
The International Joint Commission (IJC) was created by treaty between the U.S. and Canada in 1909, to resolve problems in the Great Lakes. Since 1972, the IJC has been working aggressively to improve water quality in the Lakes, with some success. Initially the concern was phosphorus, a farm fertilizer that can degrade water quality by causing excessive growth of algae and other plants, thus depleting the oxygen supply for fish. The IJC --and the two national governments that it represents --tackled the phosphorus problem and made considerable progress. However in 1978 the IJC began to focus on another, more difficult, problem: persistent toxic chemicals injuring wildlife and humans in and around the Great Lakes.[1,pg.7]
In their joint Water Quality Agreement of 1978, the U.S. and Canada defined a "toxic substance" as "a substance which can cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological or reproductive malfunctions or physical deformities in any organism or its offspring, or which can become poisonous after concentration in the food chain or in combination with other substances."
The IJC subsequently adopted a definition of a "persistent toxic substance:" any toxic substance that bioaccumulates, or any toxic chemical that has a half-life greater than eight weeks in any medium (water, air, sediment, soil, or living things).
The "half life" of a substance is the time it takes for half of it to disappear. For example, DDT has a "half-life" of about 20 years in soil; if a pound of DDT is released into soil today, half of it will still exist 20 years from now.
A substance bioaccumulates if its concentration increases as it moves through the food chain. For example, DDT may be found at one ppm (part per million) in fish and at 10 ppm in fish-eating birds. Thus DDT bioaccumulates.
In Annex 2 of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978 (amended), the IJC defined persistent toxic substances to include these: DDT and its metabolites (including DDE), aldrin and dieldrin, chlordane, endrin, heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide, lindane, methoxychlor, mirex, toxaphene, phthalic acid esters, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), plus the metals arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium, zinc, and fluoride, and other "unspecified organic compounds." (See www.ijc.org/agree/quality.html.)
During the period 1988 to 1992, under the leadership of Republican Gordon Durnil [see REHW #423, #424, #453], the IJC developed an approach to persistent toxic substances that seemed commensurate with the size and nature of the problem. The Commission turned its back on risk assessment and on numerical standards, instead calling for the ELIMINATION of persistent toxic substances. In its 6th biennial report in 1992, the IJC wrote,
"It is clear to us that persistent toxic substances have caused widespread injury to the environment and to human health. As a society we can no longer afford to tolerate their presence in our environment and in our bodies.... Hence, if a chemical or group of chemicals is persistent, toxic and bioaccumulative, we should immediately begin a process to eliminate it. Since it seems impossible to eliminate discharges of these chemicals through other means, a policy of banning or sunsetting their manufacture, distribution, storage, use and disposal appears to be the only alternative." The IJC defines "sunsetting" as "a comprehensive process to restrict, phase out, and eventually ban the manufacture, generation, use and disposal of a persistent toxic substance." (See www.ijc.org/comm/6bre.html and REHW #284.)
In its 7th and 8th biennial reports, in 1994 and 1996, the IJC confirmed and deepened its commitment to the ELIMINATION of toxic substances as the only way to solve the problems they create. (See www.ijc.org/comm/7bre.html and www.ijc.org/comm/8bre.html.) Last month the IJC released its 9th biennial report[1] and once again reaffirmed its commitment to the elimination of persistent toxic substances from the Great Lakes ecosystem. The new report says,
"The first evidence of injury by persistent toxic substances was reported more than 50 years ago."[1,pg.9]
The new report says that progress was made by banning the most obvious offenders, such as DDT and PCBs, but "evidence [has] continued to build of subtle, more insidious injury, especially neurobehavioural injury resulting from endocrine disruption during fetal development. In addition to substances already identified, others also may cause injury. Among chemicals widely distributed in our environment and reported to have endocrine-disrupting effects are pesticides such as atrazine, alachlor and methoxychlor as well as industrial chemicals such as phthalates, which are used as plasticizers. [See REHW #603.] Among the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on fish and wildlife are behavioural abnormality, compromised immune system and sex change.... Thus, despite improvements, society has not yet gone far enough. Contaminant body-burdens remain a concern --injury is still occurring...," the new IJC report says.[1,pg.10]
The new report goes on: "Most disturbing is increasing evidence that persistent toxic substances also injure human beings. The first warning signals of human injury by chemicals at levels present in the ambient environment were raised more than a decade ago, when results were published on a study of women who consumed Lake Michigan fish prior to giving birth. As a result of prenatal exposure to PCBs, the infants of these mothers had lower weight and smaller head circumference at birth, as well as shorter gestational age and poorer neuromuscular development. As they grew, other injury was identified and reported, primarily related to memory, IQ, attention, and learning and behavioural problems."[1,pg.10]
The new report goes on: "The evidence is overwhelming: certain persistent toxic substances impair human intellectual capacity, change behaviour, damage the immune system and compromise reproductive capacity. The people most at risk are children, pregnant women, women of childbearing age and people who rely on fish and wildlife as a major part of their diet. Particularly at risk are developing embryos and nursing infants," the new report says[1,pg.10]
The report goes on, "INJURY HAS OCCURRED IN THE PAST, IS OCCURRING TODAY AND, UNLESS SOCIETY ACTS NOW TO FURTHER REDUCE THE CONCENTRATION OF PERSISTENT TOXIC SUBSTANCES IN THE ENVIRONMENT, INJURY WILL CONTINUE IN THE FUTURE. THE FACT THAT SUCH INJURY IS OCCURRING, COUPLED WITH A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT OTHER, AS YET UNRECOGNIZED, EFFECTS IS A CALL FOR ACTION BY ALL [GREAT LAKES] BASIN STAKEHOLDERS TO MINIMIZE AND ELIMINATE INJURY." [Emphasis in the original.]1,pg.[11]
The new report notes with obvious approval, "In its SIXTH BIENNIAL REPORT, the Commission concluded 'that persistent toxic substances are too dangerous to the biosphere and to humans to permit their release in ANY quantity.'" And: "The Commission was quiet emphatic that 'zero discharge means just that: halting all inputs from all human sources and pathways and to prevent any opportunity for persistent toxic substances to enter the environment as a result of human activity.'"[1,pg.12]
That is the good news. The IJC is sticking to its principles: persistent toxic substances cannot be managed, but must be eliminated. If persistent toxicants are not eliminated, people and wildlife will continue to be poisoned.
But there is bad news in the report as well: Public concern about the environment remains high, but industrial corporations, and the governments they largely control, have dug in their heels and have killed progress toward cleaning up the Great lakes.
The new report says, "Public opinion polls continually show that people support a clean environment, but governments appear to be less receptive and responsive to advice and to the wishes of their citizens regarding the environment. Opposition to further environmental measures --indeed to retaining successes to date --is mounting."[1,pg.13]
The new report says, "The ability of governments at all levels to deliver... is being stressed, and programs to restore and protect the Great Lakes have drastically slowed or halted, especially initiatives for Areas of Concern [specific pollution hotspots identified by the IJC in the early 1990s] and those directed toward persistent toxic substances...."[1,pg.18]
As a consequence of opposition by industrial corporations and governments (federal, state, and provincial), "Energy and interest are flagging. Funding and resource cutbacks for environmental programs and supporting science have a domino effect on the public's sense of empowerment and mood."[1,pg.13]
The new report goes on, "Recent budget cuts have resulted in wholesale elimination of surveillance and monitoring programs, especially tributary programs in several major watersheds. Consequently, it is impossible to make [pollution] load estimates, even for phosphorus, suspended solids and other contaminants."[1,pg.34]
Indeed, the new 9th biennial report from the IJC is all but an admission of defeat: "Despite years of effort to stop inputs, clean up contamination and eliminate the use of chemicals that have long been known to cause injury, all remain widespread in the ecosystem and many continue to be used," the IJC says.[1,pg.7]
The IJC says that the public is asking, "Why are we unable to effectively deal with these persistent toxic substances?" The citizenry, which is eager to stop the poisoning, now has a sense of "hopelessness or disengagement," the IJC says.[1,pg.6]
Unfortunately, the new report never clearly states what has gone wrong, even though most people grasp the situation quite well. Industrial corporations are simply refusing to eliminate persistent toxic substances.[2] Furthermore, elected officials, who are reliant on corporations and corporate elites for campaign contributions, have created agencies, such as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that are enforcing the law less and less while relying more and more on "voluntary compliance" by industrial corporations. Wink, wink. Thus, the industrial corporations have succeeded in derailing progress toward cleaning up the Great Lakes, and indeed the larger environments of the U.S. and Canada.[3]
Because environmental advocacy organizations, for the most part, refuse to tackle the power relationships that block environmental progress, environmental progress remains impossible, and the public is (understandably) less and less supportive of an ineffective environmental community. Because no one is tackling the real problem, the public disengages. We are spiraling downward, with no end in sight. Until the environmental community decides to focus on the real source of our problems --the unseemly power of corporations over every aspect of our society --and builds coalitions to challenge the raw power of corrupt money, we will get nowhere. This is not rocket science.
--Peter Montague
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