Dioxin Study is a Political Hot Potato for EPA
Published on Monday, March 12, 2001 in the San Francisco Chronicle
Dioxin has gone from being a 'possible' to a 'known' human
carcinogen
by Mark Hertsgaard.
ONE OF EVERY thousand high-risk Americans could develop cancer from the
toxic chemical dioxin, according to a landmark study the
Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to make official. Even
more worrisome, the study warns, are dioxin's effects on the
thyroids and immune systems of children.
Ten years in the making, EPA's dioxin study is a political hot potato for
the Bush administration.
Issue the study, and the administration angers its allies in the
chemical,
paper and other dioxin-producing industries, who will surely face
calls for stricter
regulation. Bury the study, and environmental activists will cry coverup, further damaging the administration's shaky credibility on
the mom- and-apple-pie issue of environmental protection.
How President Bush and EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman handle
this
dilemma is important in its own right.
But their decision will also shed light on the administration's policy
toward the international treaty on persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, that 122 nations, including the United States, negotiated last
year.
The treaty, which calls for eliminating dioxin and other toxics
"wherever
feasible," will be signed in May in Stockholm by environmental
ministers of signatory countries. Will Whitman be among them?
There is irony in all this for Bush, for the dioxin study was initiated
in
1991 during his father's presidency. What's more, Bush Senior and
his EPA chief, William Reilly, ordered the study at the specific
behest of the chemical industry, which complained that
environmentalists' calls for limits on dioxin were based on hype,
not sound science. But now that the study is near completion, it is
unwelcome in corporate boardrooms.
"Industry pushed for this study as a way to stall tougher
regulations," says
Rick Hind of Greenpeace, one of 411 groups that recently wrote Bush,
urging the study's release. "Dioxin has gone from being a `possible'
to a `known' human carcinogen, and the risks of cancer have
increased tenfold."
Dioxin first attracted public attention during the Vietnam War; it was
the
contaminant in the defoliant Agent Orange. The chemical's reputation
worsened in the 1980s, when it caused the evacuation of the Love
Canal neighbors in upstate New York.
Dioxin is formed whenever chlorinated compounds are burned. It remains
ubiquitous because it is a byproduct of so many industrial
processes.
Production of PVC plastic - the plastic used in water
pipes and credit cards - is a leading source of dioxin.
So is the operation of waste incinerators, steel plants and paper mills
that
use chlorine as a bleaching agent.
Every person on Earth has dioxin in his system. The chemical lodges in
the
fatty tissues of animals that consume contaminated water and plants;
it also accumulates through the food chain. Humans who eat lots of
fatty foods or fish therefore end up with the highest body burdens.
Exposure is especially high for people, often poor or nonwhite or
both, living near industrial facilities (46 percent of the nation's
public housing projects are situated within a mile of toxic
factories, according to a University of Texas-Dallas study.)
So, will the EPA study see the light of day? In truth, its contents are
no
secret. A working draft is on the agency's Web site, and the media
has reported on it. But the study has no legal standing until the
EPA formally approves it. Taking that step would oblige the EPA to
incorporate the study's findings into its regulations, and therein
lies the rub.
Bush and Whitman have records of skepticism toward regulations that
restrict
corporations' freedom of action. As governor of New Jersey, Whitman
removed approximately 1,000 chemicals from a "right to know"
law
that required companies to inform residents about toxics used in
their communities.
Whitman disparaged the law as bureaucratic overkill, claiming it listed
such
trivial items as lipstick. But sodium hydrosulfate was also on the
list, and in 1995 it caused an explosion at a factory in the town of
Lodi that killed five workers and caused evacuation of 400 residents.
Criticizing regulation is easy in the abstract, but real people can end
up
paying a terrible price for lack of proper regulation. It's terrible
and unnecessary, for the costs of changing production patterns are
often overstated.
In Europe, bleaching of paper has been virtually
eliminated without economic pain, an experience that doubtless
fueled governments' enthusiasm for the POPs treaty. Here in the Bay
Area, the governments of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Marin
County have passed resolutions calling for the elimination of dioxin
wherever possible.
Bush and Whitman can score points with voters, who overwhelmingly support
environmental protection - if they reconsider their skepticism of
regulation, release the dioxin study and sign the POPs treaty. The
chemical and paper industries may not be happy, but surely that
should matter less than the health of the American people.
Mark Hertsgaard is the author of "Earth Odyssey: Around the World in
Search
of Our Environmental Future" (Broadway Books) and a columnist for
the Blue Ridge Press syndicate. He lives in San Francisco.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
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