This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the earth and the beauty
and mystery of life in all its forms. The Environment Show's a national production
made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation,
the JM Camping Fund, and Heming's Motor News, the Bible of the Collector Carhabie,
1-800-C-A-R-H-E-R-E. Your host is Peter Burley.
Coming up on this week's Environment Show, a community in New Jersey charges
environmental racism and a sludge processing plant is put on hold. We hear from
listeners about ecotourism and overpopulation and then a lot about rivers.
Golden Prize winner Juan Pablo Orrego saves the B.O. B.O. River in Chile, a portrait of
a Hila River in Arizona. And to the earth calendar, Chad migrate up the Hudson River of
New York, but only when the Pacifica blew. These stories and more coming up on this week's
Environment Show.
Three years ago, President Clinton signed an executive order addressing the issue of
environmental justice, saying he wanted to, quote, ease the disproportionate burden of
pollution and minority in low income neighborhoods.
Now, for the first time, that order has been used to scuttle plans for an individual project.
It happened in the iron-bound section of Newark, New Jersey, where citizens oppose the
construction of a sludge processing plant. Environment Show producer Thomas Lally visited the
iron-bound section and has this report.
A popular Spanish-speaking radio station blare from a dress store on ferry street in the
iron-bound. In this part of Newark, New Jersey, more people speak Spanish and Portuguese
than English. It's a close-knit community with 19th century architecture of row houses
and small neighborhood stores. But nearby is heavy and often polluting industry. For
many here, the proposal to build one more industrial plant came as the final straw.
When Avenue A in the iron-bound or for vandepal, Avenue, and we're standing in front of waste
management's transfer station, which was the proposed site for the sludge processing facility.
To want to steward Griffin is the director of the iron-bound committee against toxic waste.
Her group's work helped block construction of the sludge plant, which she says will cause
environmental and health problems for the residents of the iron-bound.
The primary concern is that the sludge processing facility is one block from residents and
four blocks of the South Street School. So they would truck it in, process it here where
they would admit noxious orders then from their trucking back through a residential area.
And because of the cumulative effects of the overexposure to dogs and mercury caused
by the other facilities that already exist in the community, the community could not stand
to have another facility at this time.
But the company which owns the site, now a waste transfer station, disputes these charges
and wonder why, out of all the industrial sites in the iron-bound, they've been singled
out. Biogrow is a subsidiary of the giant waste treatment company WMX, formerly known
as Waste Management Incorporated. They say they consulted with the community and have
been working with them to create an acceptable proposal. And until recently they say they
encountered no resistance. In fact, Biogrow says their proposed plant will improve the
neighborhood because it will replace the waste transfer station, a new sewer line will
be installed and truck traffic will actually decrease.
Pam Raci is a spokesperson with Biogrow. She admits the sludge may occasionally spread
unpleasant odors through the surrounding area, but contends the plant will not be a hazard
to the community.
We're talking about municipal sewage sludge that are safe to spread on farmland and grow
crops. This is not nothing close to a hazardous material. And my second thought is, again,
we are not adding a new waste processing facility. This facility is already functioning as
a waste processing facility. It's just trading one use for another.
I think this is, to me, a good use of an urban property. You're not taking a new site
and adding it. You're not going out to a green site and making it to waste processing
facility. You're simply converting an existing waste facility to another one.
Towanestuward Griffin says she doesn't trust Biogrow and does not want them to build
in the ironbound. She says they've been burned in the past when companies made promises
that never came through. Ironbound more than fulfills the description laid out in an
executive order signed by President Clinton in 1994. It called for special considerations
when proposing potentially polluting sites in low income and minority neighborhoods.
It's not whether or not Willa Brader has an environmentally sound project that they
want to run here. It's that the community has suffered from a disproportionate share
of environmental racism if you want to call it environmental policies that will allow
the community to suffer from a disproportionate share of these facilities. And enough is
enough. The community is not going to stand for it. And the President's executive order
basically gives us a leg to stand on.
The site of the proposed Biogrow sludge processing facility is only one of many industrial sites
in the ironbound. Anyone who's ever traveled through this part of northern New Jersey right
across from Manhattan knows it's an area famous for pollution and industry. But this is
also an area where thousands of families live and have lived for generations. Drew Groszewski
has lived in the ironbound for over seven decades. She started fighting against polluters
25 years ago and took me on a tour to show me why residents don't want an additional industrial
site like the Biogrow facility. We first stopped at the Essex County garbage incinerator
just a few blocks from her house. The incinerator burns 70,000 tons of garbage a month and stands
out prominently on the Newark skyline. It's burning constantly and what comes out of those
stacks. We inhale at 24 hours a day. Now we had the most highest mercury count here and
that doesn't leave you once you get mercury in your system that doesn't go out. So there
was no way of destroying it. But I mean we have to inhale not only the odor, not only the
stack smoke and everything plus what is doing to our systems and our children and everything.
So that's why we're upset about it. Next stop was the Diamond Shamrock Superfund site located
on the Pasey River. It's next to a wholesale produce market and a small cluster of homes.
1983 it was June I think it was when they discovered the DEP discovered that right here on this site
was the most dioxin found in the whole country. They manufactured Agent Orange back there. Now
the buildings were all torn down but they manufactured it since 1950 into the 60s and then they
left the building and went to Texas. Diamond Shamrock was a mother company. So when the company
moved out they left all the residents there. While they were there they were dumping it in the
river. They were dumping it under the railroad. They were dumping it all over and the trucks
coming back and forth were dragging it all through this neighborhood. So what happened here
right here on this railroad track they found 500 parts per billion and that's no railroad cars
would go right from here into these other companies and everything and carry all the dioxin with them.
Right on this railroad track we're saying. Yeah and they had like a snow fence here to stop the train.
You know how long that lasted. The DEP comes down in white suits, hoods,
hands covered, feet covered, all their bodies covered with a suit to protect them. The residents,
the children were running barefooted. Jun Krashevsky is one of the founding members of the iron
bound committee against toxic waste. Her Newark New Jersey neighborhood is one of those strange
places where a community thrives even amid heavy industry but she says this is her home and it's
worth fighting against an incinerator, super fun site or even a modern sludge processing facility.
For the Environment Show on Thomas Lalley.
This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. Get in touch with us with questions or comment.
Give us a call on our toll-free line. It's 1-888-49-Green or reach us via email at green at wamc.org.
Here's Environment Show Associate Producer Stephanie Goichman.
Every week we hear from our listeners. This week listener Jeff Tishman of Delmar, New York
comments on his concerns of the world's population. Every time you talk about the ozone layer,
every time you talk about the depletion of the Amazon rainforest, every time you talk about the
depletion of say the salmon run runs in the north northwest. The pollution of our oceans,
you have to talk about overpopulation because that is the reason why it's all happening.
We complain about the acid rain that's falling in the northeast and that the acid rain is coming
from the factories that are in the west. Well, the reason we have the factories in the west and
the reason why they're producing the acid rain is because they're making products for the people
that have been born and that are continuing to be born. And my major concern is that we don't
address it enough. And in response to our talking green segment on ecotourism, we received several
comments. Here's one from Fred Breeden of Northampton, Massachusetts. I find it hard to define tourism
at all for the most part as ecological, independent of what you end up doing in the community or
area in which you intend to do your touring. Touring by definition means travel. Travel means
high and expensive use of petrochemicals, hardly ecological. It also means using excess money that
we've extracted both from various peoples and from various environments that we the west, the wealthy
west have to spend on doing such luxurious things as touring. Therefore, it would seem most
obvious to me that if you really intend to care for community and belief that is doing interesting
things, as I mentioned one project that was mentioned on the radio, that you would save your money
and some of your money, give them half of what you would have spent on your tour and stay at home
and read a book. If you have questions or concerns about the environment or one of our segments,
give us a call on our toll free number 1-888-49-Green. You just might tune in to hear your comment next week
on the Environment Show. That was Environment Show Associate Producer Stephanie Gwichman.
The B.O.B.O. River runs from the Andes Mountains in Chile through lush rainforests before reaching
the sea. The river has supported populations of indigenous people for hundreds and maybe even
thousands of years, but now it's being tapped to feed Chile's growing need for electricity.
One dam has already been built and five more are planned. One Pablo Aurego is an activist from Chile
and one of the winners of this year's Goldman and Bar Metal Awards. He says these dams will block the
natural flow of water through the B.O.B.O. displaced thousands of indigenous people into even
older the atmosphere around the river. He spoke with Environment Show Producer Thomas Lally.
The B.O.B.O. is part of the ancestral territory of an indigenous people, the Peuenshi people.
And what we are seeing is that we are risking right now the dismantling,
the dismantling of this culture, literally. If the second dam is built, we are pretty sure that
these people are going to disappear as a culture, at least from the face of the earth.
They have been there for centuries. They are indigenous peoples of Peacolambian ancestry.
And we think that this is absolutely unacceptable. It's unbelievable in the 20th century,
and going to the 21st century, this should not happen. And these people are somehow, they have
the seeds in them. They could be masters in sustainable development. We talked so much about
sustainable development. And these people really knew how to live there without degrading, but one
bit that fantastic ecosystem. And just using the products of the forest and of the river without
degrading the environment. So we are destroying harmonious worlds to feed sick worlds like cities,
and with this energy. Is that the reason the dams are being built, just to provide electricity?
Yes, the only purpose of this dam is to produce energy. They are not multi-purpose,
they are not for irrigation, just for energy production.
Now a lot of people in this country will hear this and think, well, you know,
why should I be concerned? What is my relationship to this river and to these people?
How should they think? How should they answer that question?
Well, we have to start seeing the biosphere, planet Earth as one single organism, one single entity.
I mean, that's the way it is. It's not a metaphor. I am a scientist, and I am, this is a
scientific tool. It's also beautiful and metaphorical, but it's a scientific tool. And when we destroy
a river and when we destroy large forests, we are somehow degrading the whole biosphere. We are
degrading the capacities for self-sustaining of the whole biosphere. So really the BIOBio, it's a
Chile's most important river, but it's also one of the most important rivers of the planet.
So we have the really amazing species of flora and fauna that we have not even studied.
You know, and the BIOBio has not, as a ecosystem, has not been researched in depth.
For example, Lycan's, Fangus, mushrooms, even insects have never been studied in the BIOBio.
So we are risking the loss of things that we don't even know that they are there,
you know, medicines, products, etc. So I think that people should start seeing this damages
as a personal loss. This affects everybody, affects the whole of humanity, I think. And it's,
I mean, you know, the BIOBio was becoming very famous in the whole world because so beautiful.
It's such a beautiful, beautiful place. And sometimes, you know, people say, well,
beauty is like a sentimentalism. If it was wrong to descend beauty. And as an ecologist,
I'm saying that beauty is an indication of ecological harmony and richness. So it's no problem
in the country. We should descend beauty, landscape and beauty.
So where are we now in the process? So what is the outlook for the river?
Things are very difficult in Chile right now. You know, that last week, finally,
the country promulgated our first environmental legislation in our history last week.
So we are really behind in this sense. But as we all know very well, more than laws,
what we need is the will, you know, the wisdom, the culture, the love to protect nature,
which is a way of protecting ourselves too. So unfortunately, in Chile right now, there is
the authorities and these entrepreneurs are totally mesmerized with many. It is, they're very,
I'm sorry to say this, that they're very greedy. So the only thing they think about is
accelerated economic growth at any cost. So even with this environmental law, right now,
it's very difficult to descend and ecosystem to descend a watershed to descend a river. So if
you think like logically, it would seem as if the second dam is also going to be built in the
bioboe. But we are struggling, you know, it's a very, very popular cause in Chile. I'm sure that
if there was some kind of consultation process in Chile, the Chilean people would say no to the
damning of the bioboe. 1997 Goldman Environmental Award winner for South America, Juan Pablo
of Rago, speaking with producer Thomas Lalli.
We all have places which are special to us, for some their city streets, for others
their deep in the wilderness. Gregory McNamey is the author of A Desert Beastierity, Folklore,
Literature and Ecological Thought from the World's Dry Places. He presents a portrait of a green
place on the Healer River in Arizona. In the two decades I've lived in Arizona, I have become
something of a collector of OACs and rivers. This has been useful knowledge for survival,
and acquiring it has led me into some unexpectedly beautiful corners of this dry state.
One of the most beautiful no longer exists. It lay along the Healer River just outside the small
copper mining town of Wankleman, where a dense thicket of cottonwood, velvet ash, and willow trees
crowded a low grey brown sandstone cliff to shut out the sun. Between forest and cliffs stood the
narrow river, quiet after a run through a boulder-choked canyon just upstream. Within this sanctuary it was
possible to imagine that we lived in a different time in a greener place, and I spent many hours there
on the way to the mountains. Watching birds and working overnotes for a book I was writing on the
natural and human history of the Healer. At that narrow bend of the river lived an old Mexican
American woman, whose small frame house lay perhaps 15 yards from the stream, surrounded by
mesquite trees, and whose branches she had hung dozens of hummingbird feeders. Those feeders
drew hundreds of hummingbirds from the surrounding desert. So many of them that approaching her house,
you would swear you were entering a great beehive filled with flashing creatures whose song went
zun zun, zun zun. In this oasis both natural and human-made, pride of ownership went foremost to
the rainbow-hued anas, caustas, coliope, broadtailed, and roofless hummingbirds that sheltered here,
and then to the squadrons of tannagers, kingfisher's jays, mirlens, and eagles who watched over the
proceedings. An interloper, with no claim but of affection on the place, I suppose it met all my
standards of paradise, with its cool water, its grasses, flowers, and trees, its abundant wildlife.
I suspected met the hummingbirds' idea of paradise, too. Had we some way of asking, I would want to
know for certain. But for this oasis questions would come too late, all but dead after generations
of damming and overuse. The Healer River danced to ghost dance and came to life with
a vengeance for a few weeks in 1993, churning over the Coolidge Dam upstream, roaring through
Winkleman, gnawing everything in its path. The woman's house and hummingbird feeders disappeared in
a wall of water. So did most of the trees that line that small kink in the river's course,
where they once stood as now a wide, stony beach, and on that beach now lull herds of cattle,
a desert river's worst enemy, and a reminder if we needed one, that impermanence and destruction
are our lot in the world. Where the old woman went I do not know. I hope she has helped make
another oasis somewhere in the desert to give weary travelers a little pleasure. The world she
helped make before is gone. But not entirely, for just a couple of days ago I watched hummingbirds
come to the Healer, not in phalanxes as before, but in twos and threes, to reclaim this slender
ribbon of water. Harboring a few ghost dance sentiments of my own, I know that as long as those
beautiful birds grace our rivers, there is hope for this dry corner of the world. Gregory McNamey
reading from his book A Desert Beasty Area, published by Johnson Books. Stay tuned, the Earth
calendar is next.
In our continuing series on the Great American Harvest, we look at Shad fishing in the Hudson
River in New York. Shad or fish which spend most of their lives in the oceans feeding on plankton.
But each year at this time they travel up rivers along the east coast to spawn.
Bob Gabrielson is a fisherman from Niant New York and president of the New York State Commercial
Fisherman's Association. Well we're just in the process now getting ready to fish for Shad
for to share migration and we expect them to be coming up. And they're a little bit late this
year regardless that we did have a mile winter but it's getting, I don't know whether wind is
getting over with here when I've ice them my boat yesterday. But when we have an northwest wind
and the Shad should be coming this week or next week.
Gabrielson's been fishing for Shad in a Hudson for 55 years and says flowers tell him when the
migration begins. Well usually I hate to say it, it's when I see the Pacifica here in my yard
turning yellow and the flowers are out. My favorite slogan is the Shad or in the river. And
our Shad in the river right now and that's the first sign that we always gone back to for years
is when you see the Pacific flowers out here in Markland County, the Shad or in the river. And
that gives us an indication that they're coming and then from then on it's they increase
and get more plentiful. The most valuable product from Shad is the row or the eggs.
I think Shad row is the best food from fish nature has to offer.
Gabrielson agrees and says the rest of the fish is pretty good too.
The fish eggs inside of it they call that Shad row. It's a big delicacy as far
as in the better restaurants in New York City. And then they have to take the row out of the fish
they have the carcass of the fish. They take that and they call it they bone it. They actually
first they do it they fillet like it fillet normal fish and then they put it you've got to see
them do this they put it on the lazy sews and spin it around I think I bake about eight or nine
more cuts and then we move all the hair bones out of it and they refer to as boning a Shad.
Shad fishing on the Hudson and many other rivers is a dying profession. Today most Shad are
fished in large quantities from the ocean and that's put fishermen like Gabrielson out of business.
Well I tell you when I was a young man there was 14 people fishing in the act. Now you're talking to
them. The rivers I'm telling you it's I've never seen it so healthy and alive and so full of
different animals than you can ever comprehend. The irony of a river teaming with life while the
fishing industry along it dies is not lost on Gabrielson. Maybe he just needs to plant more
facitya so more people know when to go fishing. Thanks for listening this is the Environment Show
and I'm Peter Burley.
This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. Still ahead.
pollutants from sources thousands of miles to the south are concentrating the flesh of animals
and fish in the Arctic. The eight circumpolar nations together with a native
inuit peoples are developing strategies to deal with the problem. The proposed treaty to ban chemical
weapons requires poison gas supplies to be destroyed. Is the technology good enough to do it safely?
We talked green about it. Singer songwriter Robert Hoyt is not enthusiastic about where technology
is taking us. In fact he sings it's quittin' time on the high tech plantation. These stories still
ahead on the Environment Show.
Anyone who has experienced the Arctic thinks of its vast scope, its seeming purity reflected in
white snow and ice and on occasion brilliant sunshine. But the combination of air flows,
weather and temperature has made the Arctic the receiving ground for chemical pollution which
originates thousands of miles away. Deborah Dameron for Arctic science journeys reports from Fairbanks, Alaska.
Novelist Robert's services gritty stories about the far north made places like Lake La Barge in
Canada's Yukon Territory Famous. The stories reflected a time when the Arctic was a pristine land.
Now signed to say the lakes polluted and its fish tainted. Mark Palmer is with the Canadian
Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. Sort of caught everyone in the Yukon off guard.
That also there's this chemical toxin. Nobody knew what it was. Nobody, you know, was never used
around that lake. Aligned it in our fifth. You know everybody was sort of thinking Yukon was pristine
and there's no problems here. And all of a sudden, why am we going to hit with this?
Toxin is a pesticide once used extensively on cotton and soybean crops in the United States.
Band since the 1970s it's still commonly used in many developing countries. Although such
countries are thousands of miles from the Arctic, Toxin is making its way to the Arctic by hitchhiking
aboard global air currents. Mark Palmer explains. It's still being used in countries like Mexico and
Russia. So and it's really all organic lines, especially Toxin are quite volatile where it says
it warms up, they go into a vapor phase and then they go around in the atmosphere and when it
all attaches off to a rain drop or a snow particle and when it cools down it will come back down
on rain or snow and get and and pause it onto the ground and then in the summer it would heat up
and and come off again and the grasshopper effect is what some people refer to it as and it bounces
around. Everything sort of bounces north and then gets stuck up here. Toxin becomes trapped in the
Arctic because it's too cold much of the year for evaporation to occur. As a result the pesticide
accumulates first in the lakes and later in the organs of fish. Indians and Eskimos consider eating
fish kidneys and livers a delicacy but health officials have warned against the practice.
I love it's so low they don't mean a thing in the turkey water but when it wants to get to the
fish they're actually at you know quite high level as a result of this health Canada put an advisor
out saying based on the levels of Toxin don't consume the berbit liver and only limited quantities
of lake true flash and it was about seven ounces a week. Scientists say Toxin and other chemicals
pose a danger in only a few of the territories thousands of lakes to keep it that way Mark Palmer
says Arctic nations will have to lobby countries far from the Arctic to stop using dangerous
chemicals. For Arctic science journeys this is Deborah Damron reporting from Fairbanks, Alaska.
The eight nations which surround the Arctic Ocean and the native peoples known as Inuits who
have lived in the Arctic since ancient times are developing strategies to protect their homelands.
That was Barry Simon Canadian ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs telling her mother in their native
Inuit language about international efforts to protect the North American environment. She
describes how the Circumpolar effort has been organized. The Arctic environmental protection
strategy first of all brings eight Arctic countries together the United States Canada, Russia,
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark, Greenland and it was first in the session initiated back
in 1991 because there was a lot of concern over pollution that was being detected in the Arctic
particularly the toxic transbound revolution that isn't being manufactured in the Arctic but is
coming through the various pathways like the the the air the rivers the ocean and as a result of that
an agreement was signed by the eight Arctic countries and it addresses several aspects of
environmental issues in particular one of the most active areas at the moment is a working group
that was created to address the transbound revolution issue and we're now talking about PCBs
and POPs and other toxic chemicals which are winding up in the Arctic atmosphere. Yes that's correct
mercury cadmium you know a lot of the different chemicals and what scientists have found
through the research and the work that is being done by this working group under the Arctic
Environmental Protection Strategy is that these chemicals are accumulating in the Arctic region
and then they are then transferred to by the animals who eat the the the lichen and the and the moss
and and then people that live in the North eat those animals so this chemical these toxic
contaminants are being found in humans. In addition to the toxics what are some of the other
major environmental threats that the Arctic is now facing? It has to do with large projects like mega
projects that have not always been very sustainable for the Arctic or its peoples and you know we're
trying to introduce a new way of doing things in terms of development in the Arctic region and that
is that not only do you look at the environmental impact on the land but you look at the impact in
terms of the the living resources and the people that live in the region. Ambassador Simon says one of
the real challenges in the Arctic is to provide both jobs in a market economy and to protect the
natural resources that have sustained the inowats who hunt and fish for their food. One of the main priorities
for Inuit I think all across the North not just in the Canadian North but in other parts of the
circumpolar world is that they want to make sure that that we maintain the integrity of the
environment that that we continue to safeguard the environment but at the same time they are
looking more to see how if development does take place what role do they have in the whole
area of sustainable development? How will it provide more jobs for the people in the North? Because
right now the young generation which is probably the predominant population in the North and is fair
you know much more highly educated than let's say our ancestors were academically are saying well
we need jobs we have to depend on a cash income we can't be depending on welfare as a way of life
so they want to find a balance between being able to maintain your cultural identity as a
people and be able to hunt and fish for your main food. Mary Simon is the ambassador for a
circumpolar affairs for the Canadian government and represents Canada on the Arctic Council
we're talking green and I'm your host Peter Burley today we're talking about chemical
weapons and their destruction and this is an issue which raises numerous environmental concerns
particularly as the chemical weapons convention is being considered we want to hear from you our
number is 1-888-49-Green my guest today are Mark Evans he's Chief of Operations and Program Manager
for Chemical B militarization at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland Craig Williams he's
co-founder of the chemical weapons working group in Kentucky that's a coalition of citizens groups
around the world working for safe and acceptable methods of chemical weapons disposal and Mary
lib hoinkas who is General Counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in Washington
and I might say that Mary lib was a former deputy assistant secretary of state for the environment
so Mary lib let's start with you the treaty goes into effect whether the U.S. ratifies it or not
what does it say about the destruction of chemical weapons it requires that any country
that has chemical weapons and I should add that we do in the vast quantity we have some 30,000
metric guns Russia has some 40,000 must get rid of its chemical weapons must destroy them
within 10 years I think what's very important for listeners to appreciate in terms of this treaty
is that by law the United States must get rid of practically all of its chemical weapons
whether any other country does or not by the year 2004 and I'm sure that my colleagues on the
on the radio station the show here will be wanting to address the means by which we do
yes no Mark you're involved in that as part of chemical be militarization how's it going
and is this a process that's safe that's a great question and the answer is it's going well
the the demil program is in that's what we call it the destruction effort is in the stage where we
are taking our technology and are prototyping in at a facility located in the south Pacific
and that facility's done what prototypes traditionally do which has given us a lot of opportunities
to learn ways to improve and to optimize performance the facility in Utah where about 44% of the
United States stockpile is stored has started operations and is demonstrating substantial improvements
over that which we demonstrated in the Johnson Island facility so I say we're all in track to
to eliminating this threat once and for all Craig Williams let me ask you as a citizen watchdog group
are you satisfied that this process can go on in a way that's environmentally sound
well not under the current choice of technology it's an interesting question to ask Mr. Evans how
is it going if for him to respond that it's going well I think we need to define our terms
what we have here is a program that shows the technology back in 1982 that being incineration
the program is currently 13 years behind schedule 700% over budget has a history of
releasing live chemical warfare agent into the atmosphere at both the prototype facility in the
Pacific and what they're now calling the prototype facility in Utah along with a myriad of other
toxic material much much of which is of unknown public health impact and I think that the fact that
the Utah facility supposedly having been modeled after the original prototype was not going to have
any force shutdowns or these kinds of problems and the fact that it's been forced to shut down at
least six times since it began operations just last August speaks for itself okay so you're not
happy about what's going on before we go to the phones mark do you want to respond briefly
I sure would a lot of what Mr. Williams likes to refer to in terms of schedules is typical of
what prototypes do and we need to recognize that a sudden substantial portion of that could be
repeated as we go to more experimental technologies introduced into more locations I'd also note that
it's been reported this multitude of of toxins 99.4% of what comes out the stack has been well
characterized and environmental protection agency says it's cleaner than what's found in almost
every urban area in the United States so we need to try to put our terms into some points of
reference okay so that that will be an issue of continuing and discussion of very little
points I'd like to ask you in question again before we go to the phones and that has to do with
the requirements of destruction while we are doing it under a statute passed by the Congress
as you pointed out the treaty will require everybody to get rid of their stuff do
signatories to the treaty and not the United States have the capacity to do this in an environmentally
sound way you mentioned Russia you mentioned some other countries well the choice of how to
destroy clearly is left up to the state party concern but clearly it is in our interest to try
to share technologies and to ensure that safe and sound methods are used I just would impress
and it's interesting as we look at how we have different perspectives on this issue that while we're
considering how we will best do this domestically this treaty is the only handle we have to
ensuring that the rest of the world does any destruction at all right now there's no law
against possessing or producing in fact chemical weapons the only law international law that's
on the books banned their use in war okay let's go to the phones and I see we have a call from
Karen who is from Oregon Karen you're talking green in the environment show I live in one of the
stockpile communities near the Utoa Army depot and I'm I'm not convinced that the incineration
program can be done safely I'm very concerned with the record that they've had in operating
the J-CAD facility in the Pacific and with the problems that they've already had a Korean in Utah
Karen how close are you to the facility that you described I live approximately seven miles
from the facility so this is a real concern as far as your concern this is a very different
story right now Craig do you have any comments on the problems that Karen is facing well I think her
her concerns are well-founded I think what we've got here is not a question or a debate on whether
or not it's a good idea for the United States and for the world to rid themselves of chemical
weapons I think the issue here is how do you go about it in a way that meets the congressional
mandate of offering maximum protection to the workers the public and to the environment clearly
incineration is not an environmentally sound or environmentally protective methodology there are
toxic materials including low levels of agent that come out of the stacks of these facilities on
a chronic basis when they're operating perfectly and on an increased basis when they're operating in
an upset condition which they seem to do a good portion of the time do you have thoughts about
other alternatives that might be available what we're looking for now is an honest comparative
evaluation of alternatives that do not as an intrinsic part of their process emit toxic material
into the environment as incineration does okay we feel they're out there and that they can be
demonstrated Karen thanks for your call mark you were challenged by Craig who says that the
incineration bent which is the current approved method is not the right one how do you respond to
that I would say that based on what we know today if I have to pick a technology today the answer
is no that the technologies have simply not been advanced and developed to a state or they're
even at a comparable level of maturity to allow comparisons with incineration that's why and I
served as the primary author of the Army's report recommending research into neutralization based
alternatives to determine if in fact we could develop one in an effective manner that could serve
to destroy the stockpile but we need to recognize one other thing as well that as the stockpile
sit by their very nature they're a very dangerous item and that as the danger site and sits in storage
if a very unlikely event should act upon it we could have a very serious problem I pick a location
like aniston where the population lives relatively close risk assessments which have been validated by
the national research council showed that the risk of the public is seven hundred times greater
by doing nothing and waiting until this alternative can be developed then through disposing of it
and again we're talking in theoretical terms what is this stuff what are we talking about well
what we're talking about is is a series of chemicals that we really need to be mystified this
we're dealing with a series of organic organic phosphate chemicals when it comes to nerve agent
that act on the body's a nervous system known in the vernacular is poison gas or nerve gas
or nerve gas and there's also some parts of the United States stockpile which are what we'll call
blister agents that serve to cause something similar to chemical burns that's what these things are
and they're contained in usually metal containers sometimes that containers called a projectile
sometimes it's just a big tank and sometimes it's a rocket but that's actually what's there and
they're sitting in some cases in concrete case igloo's bunkers in some cases they're even stored
outside okay great well let's go back to the phones and another call from Oregon Frank your
tucking green in the environment show yes Frank Arkham wrote the mayor of hermiston mayor of
hermiston right isn't the hermiston a place where there's a what a facility being built or
yes you met telekinegol before I live in the same town as karen jones we're on the opposite side
of the fence I do not agree with Craig Williams and I do not agree with with uh karen jones uh
okay generation is the only proven technology to date to destroy the in 55 rockets the other
technologies could maybe handle the agent but they can't handle the other parts of the rock
because one day of storage is 1100 times risker than one day of disposing the chemical weapons and
also the beq just issued the permit the rapion could start June the first and destroying the
rockets of the hematillochemical bitpole and it says no air quality threat and Henry Lorenzen whose
chairman of the dee can be eq committee in the state of Oregon there's one tough old say in the
very strong and vandalists and a great guy okay well the print for a long time thanks to your
fear call our time is running short but I would like a Craig to comment on the remark that's been
made by a couple vow that it's safer to get rid of this stuff than to store it well I like to see
that issue you might already notice that according to mr evans that's 700 times more risky to
continue to store it according to the mayor it's 1100 times more risky to continue to store it
and according to whatever the numbers are yeah how do you come out on the issue about whether
we should get rid of it or hang out or at the risk assessments themselves are flawed even in the
army's own risk assessment at toella where there is 42 percent the risk of is less than one
fatality in a million for continued storage for 500 years according to their own risk assessment
what they do is can tort that into a comparative analysis of saying 700 times greater
1100 times greater a million times greater but the bottom line is that the risk of continued
storage of these materials as a counter argument to alternative safe disposal technologies
is being used as a stick to force communities to accept technologies that they would otherwise
not accept such as the burning of the most lethal chemicals on the planet so you're not
to be you're not uncomfortable about hanging on to them longer at least at this point there's
nobody arguing to continue to store these things for 500 years or anywhere near 500 years
what we're saying is the latest information from the GAO and the army's own all tech reports
are within five to seven years we can have a viable closed loop not emitting safe probably
cheaper and more easily permitted alternative technology online ready to go to start the
supposing of these weapons that's what we're advocating Merle Boykets as a counsel to the arms
control agency how do you find other nations have reacted to this issue i notice a lot of countries
have signed the tree while we're still debating it has the notion of signing out of this been
politically easier another part of the of the world and if so how do you account for that that's
hard for me to assess i can tell you're absolutely right there more than 170 countries that have
signed and now more than 70 that have ratified and of course but i suppose a lot of those don't have
chemical weapons so it's easier for them to sign up and i think the hesitation certainly we and as
you as probably are where we in the russians have been in in discussion on a bilateral basis for a
long time event destruction of chemical weapons and and it's not an easy matter for them either
they're they're facing a very large as you know stockpile i i think that there is a general feeling
on the part of the vast majority of nations that this will be a process that will benefit by having
more participants rather than than fewer i think that if there were an appreciation of serious
concerns in the united states it might be understood that that some of these time frames might
have to just a little bit okay well i'm afraid you got the last word because our time is up we've
been talking green on the environment show about the destruction of chemical weapons my guess
has been mark evams chief of operations and program manager for chemical demilitarization at the
Aberdeen proving ground crag Williams co-founder of the chemical weapons working group a citizen
group and mary lib hoikens who is general counsel of the u.s arms control and disarmament agency
we've been talking green on the environment show our number is one eight eight eight forty nine
green and let's hear from you i'm your host peter burley
chemical weapons are an example of how tough it is to protect the environment from things we make
particularly when we don't need them anymore robberd hoiht song quitting time on his album dumpster
diving across america urges us to pay more attention to nature than the latest gizmo on the shelf
at the gizmo store i just get excited about new inventions i'm sure most were made with the best
of intentions thought it was cool put a pan on the moon but now i've gone to sing a different tune
technology and science have become a religion based on life a not-god's decision when
answers cause the problems and stomachs type of thing slam on the brakes and make a you turn from
the brain it's winter time it's winter time it's winter time on that high-tech foundation
it's winter time it's winter time on that old high-tech plantation it's winter time more good
they try to tell us how hard it used to be back when things didn't touch simplicity
but our way of life is based on false pretenses cause look at all the unintended consequences
it's winter time it's winter time it's winter time on that high-tech plantation it's winter time
it's winter time on that old high-tech plantation it's winter time more good
it's winter time it's winter time it's winter time on that high-tech plantation
it's winter time on that old high-tech plantation it's winter time more good it's
Quitting time. From Robert Hoyt's album, don't you diving across America on Focon the
Boat Records.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show. I'm Peter Burley. For a cassette copy
of the program called 1-888-49-Green and asked for show number 381. The Environment Show
is a presentation of national productions which is solely responsible for its contents.
Dr. Ellen Schartock is the executive producer, Thomas Lale is producer, and Stephanie Goycement
of the Associate Producer. The Environment Show is made possible by the W. W. W. W.
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