NOVEMBER-
DECEMBER 1977
VOL. THREE,
NO. TEN
LABOR AND EPA
U. S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
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Working With Our
Constituencies
Starting with this issue the main therne of
each month's EPA Journal will be an exami-
nation of the relations of one of the Agency's
major constituency groups with the environmental
cause.
This will be part of an effort by EPA and its
Office of Public Awareness to reach a better under-
standing of key segments of the public such as
agriculture, urban and environmental interests.
We begin with the theme of Labor and EPA. As
part of this new effort we are launching an editorial
column, "Environmentally Speaking," to let EPA
employees and the general public know what the
Agency's leadership is thinking on current signifi-
cant issues.
The first column by Administrator Douglas M.
Costle reports on actions the Agency is taking to
improve its rapport with labor and notes the com-
mon interests shared by workers and the environ-
mental movement.
Articles on labor and the environment carried in
this issue include reports on employment opportun-
ities provided by cleanup efforts, protection of
worker health, and environmental and economic
justice.
The January EPA Journal will examine the role
industry is playing in the quest for a better environ-
ment.
In this issue, we also have an interview with the
new Assistant Administrator for Air and Waste
Management, David G. Hawkins.
Also in this issue are excerpts from aspeech,"The
Three E's—Economics, Energy, Environment," de-
livered at the University of Illinois by Joan Martin
Nicholson, Director of the Office of Public Aware-
ness.
Another subject reviewed is the major effort EPA
is making to develop effective tests using fish and
other living organisms to measure and control chem-
ical pollution.
The program to get the Federal Government to
clean up its defense installations and other facilities
around the country is also discussed.
The Environmental Almanac column reviews the
status of the long-standing struggle between two
remarkably successful predators—man and the coy-
ote.
.The magazine concludes with a report on the
wide interest in a new film on drinking water safety
produced with the aid of EPA funds.
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U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY
Douglas M. Costle,
Administrator
Joan Martin Nicholson
Director
Office of Public Awareness
Charles D. Pierce,
Editor
Truman Temple,
Associate Editor
Dave Cohen, Chris Fferham
Assistant Editors
Cover: Construction workers at new
waste treatment facilities being built at
Piscataway, Md., below Washington on
the Potomac.
Photo Credits: Ernest Bucci, Kheryn
Klubnikin, Al Fitterman of Design
Center, Inc.
Printed on recycled paper.
The EPA Journal is published monthly,
with combined issues July-August and
November-December, by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. Use
of funds for printing this periodical has
been approved by the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget.
Views expressed by authors do not
necessarily reflect EPA policy.
Contributions and inquiries should be
addressed to the Editor (A-107),
Waterside Mall, 401 M St., S.W.,
Washington,DC..20460. No permission
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Subscription: $8.75 a year, $.90 for
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ARTICLES
LABOR AND EPA
PAGE 2
Administrator Douglas M. Costle writes about the common inter-
ests of labor and the environmental movement.
CLEANING UP PRODUCES JOBS
PAGE 4
A review of how Federal environmental laws are helping to boost
employment opportunities.
ENVIRONMENT ALAND ECONOMIC JUSTICE _ PAGE 6
An AFL-CIO spokesman speaks about labor and the environment.
WORKERS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
PAGE 8
An interview with Dr. Irving Selikoff by Truman Temple, Associ-
ate Editor, EPA Journal.
ENVIRONMENTAL JOBS FOR MINORITIES PAGE 11
EPA is helping to finance a survey of available jobs.
A UNION'S FIGHT FOR CLEAN AIR PAGE 12
A report by Frank Corrado on a Chicago area union leader's push
for environmental cleanup.
URBAN WORKSHOPS PAGE 13
Urban and workplace environmental issues are being reviewed at
a series of meetings EPA is helping to finance.
NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE AIR PROGRAM
PAGE 14
An interview with David G. Hawkins, Assistant Administrator for
Air and Waste Management.
THE THREE E'S—ECONOMICS, ENERGY,
ENVIRONMENT PAGE 16
Excerpts from a speech by Joan Martin Nicholson, Director of
EPA's Office of Public Awareness.
CRACKDOWN ON FEDERAL AGENCIES
FISH DETECT TOXICS by Kheryn Klubnikin
MILLIONS SEE
DRINKING WATER FILM
PAGE 19
PAGE 22
BACK COVER
DEPARTMENTS
NATION
PEOPLE
ALMANAC
UPDATE
NEWS BRIEFS
PAGE 20
PAGE 24
PAGE 27
PAGE 28
PAGE 29
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Environmentally Speaking
Labor and EPA
by Douglas M. Costle, EPA Administrator
I came to the Environmental Protection Agency convinced of
several things about our relationship with labor:
• Labor and EPA are not antagonists.
• We have important common interests and goals, and we will
be more effective in achieving those by working together than
by being driven apart.
• EPA is not composed of elitists concerned about issues far
removed from the lives of most working men and women; to the
contrary, our primary mission is to protect people from health-
endangering pollutants. It is increasingly clear that a dangerous
workplace environment results in an unsafe community.
Hazardous pollutants harm not only workers but their families as
wetl.
• Jobs and cleanup are not mutually exclusive. I want to be
sure that we deliver that message and act upon the
opportunities inherent in that concept.
For these reasons, I will make a major effort to increase
communications with labor —to listen to and learn from labor
and to tell our story as well.
We must recognize several key points, which have important
implications for labor and EPA:
Environmental policy is evolving rapidly. During the early
1970's, most of EPA's activity was devoted to assimilating
major legislative initiatives— particularly those in air and water —
and to regulating what are now called "conventional"
pollutants.
In the future, while we will continue to concentrate on
enforcement of the air and water laws, we will also be placing
greater emphasis on control of toxic and hazardous pollutants
both through new taws and new emphases in existing laws.
Our enforcement authority has been strengthened recently by
passage of the amendments to the Clean Air Act. We now are
directed to impose civil penalties designed to remove the
economic benefits gained from non-compliance. In the past, we
were constrained by having only criminal penalties and
injunctive authority —both unwieldy —to enforce against
polluting stationary sources. The new noncompliance penalties
should remove the incentive for companies to delay compliance
believing that they can stymie EPA's enforcement efforts
through litigation and shutdown threats. The United Steel
Workers has expressed strong support for the penalty system,
stating that now it will be harder for companies to use members'
WGK 2
jobs as "pawns in a game of procrastination and environmental
blackmail."
The penalty policy, designed to more effectively protect
public health, will also reduce harmful emissions in the
workplace.
In addition, we are exploring our authority in other areas
to use economic incentives and disincentives as supplementary
enforcement tools.
I believe that in ten years the Agency will be driven chiefly by the
need to control toxic materials in the environment. That policy
impetus will have a major impact on the health and protection of
this Nation's workers, who are exposed at the front line to the
most hazardous of those pollutants and whose families and
neighbors are at the next line. We are very concerned about the
long-term health effects of occupational chemical exposures,
and about the clear link between the workplace and the
community. For this reason, we are working closely with Eula
Bingham and The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA). For instance, we recently took joint
action with OSHA to regulate DBCP, a pesticide which causes
sterility and, possibly, cancer.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), illustrates
effectively our direct involvement in the protection of the health
of American workers. Our first major step under that law,
determining our priorities, was taken recently when a list of
chemicals and groups of chemicals was recommended for
testing to determine their hazard to health or the environment.
Millions of workers are exposed to these chemicals, which may
cause cancer, genetic damage, or other health effects. We will
be cooperating closely with OSHA on testing and sharing
information. Furthermore, we are involved in a cooperative
effort with OSHA, the Food and Drug Administration and the
Consumer Product Safety Commission to ensure maximum
coordination regarding toxics. Our goal is to simplify and make
more efficient the regulatory process to control toxic materials in
the environment.
In addition to the high priority that will be placed on
implementation of TSCA, most of our programs—water, air,
solid waste, drinking water, pesticides—will concentrate
increasingly on regulation of toxic and hazardous pollutants.
The third fact we must recognize is the possibility that we may
be seeing a major shift in the economy, not only of the United
States but of all the major industrialized nations as well. The
EPA JOURNAL
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recovery from the recession is coming very slowly, and
investment in new plant and equipment is lagging.
When managers decide to phase out facilities because they
are old and uneconomic, relaxation of environmental controls
will not change that reality. But it is tempting to use cleanup
regulations as a red herring; it is far easier to blame such
regulations for a shutdown than it is to explore the complicated
myriad of economic and management reasons for such a
situation. Steel is the obvious example, but the situation may be
repeated to some degree in other basic industries as well.
It is generally expected that there will be less general capital
investment than in the past and with the concomitant likelihood
of areas of high unemployment from which basic industries have
fled, EPA will address several employee protection issues:
Anti-environmental blackmail provisions exist in the air and
water laws, and in TSCA. These are designed to prevent
employers from making unsubstantiated claims of job losses in
an attempt to avoid compliance.
In addition, anti-retaliation provisions exist in the air, water,
safe drinking water and toxic substances laws (as well as in the
OSHA law.) These prohibit an employer from retaliating against
an employee who has helped to implement one of these laws in
some way.
Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, given the current
state of the economy, we are directed to study with the Labor
Department a proposal for an assistance program for workers
who have been dislocated due to job losses caused by
environmental controls. Because environmental regulations are
only one of many costs which may result in the shutdown of a
marginal facility, the numbers of such environmental job losses
may be small. Therefore, I would like us to expand the proposal
and explore an environmental adjustment policy to provide
adequate financial protection for displaced workers when
environmental controls have played a significant—but not
necessarily a determining—role in a plant closure.
11 must also be recognized that environmental regulations
I create jobs. The facts show that more people have been
employed now than would have been without the major
pollution control programs. Approximately 19,000 job losses
have been attributed to pollution control compared to perhaps
half a million jobs that were generated because of cleanup
efforts. Such jobs are generated in three ways. First,
construction of equipment and plants required by environmental
programs create the largest number of jobs. The greatest job-
creater we have is the sewage treatment construction grants
program. (In July 1976, for example, 92,000 workers were
employed in on-and off-site jobs directly related to this
program).
The second way in which jobs are created is in the pollution
control equipment manufacturing industry. It has been
estimated that 75,000 new jobs in this industry have been
created as a result of the air and water legislation of the last few
years.
Finally, many more indirect jobs are stimulated by these
expenditures. Our surveys project another 300,000 jobs created
for construction, installation, operation and maintenance, and
research and development related to pollution controls. Tougher
enforcement of operating and maintenance procedures will not
only mean more jobs but will also mean decreased pollution
levels at the worksite.
I want to stress that when we talk about the issue of jobs
versus the environment we are caught in the old mindset of
looking at pollution controls as unproductive, profit-decreasing
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
expenditures. Rather, we need to explore calculating
productivity in a larger and more meaningful perspective, one
that includes protection of workers' health.
"The last point I want to stress is that protection of human
I health is a fitting and apt continuation of the progressive
philosophy that historically has been the basis of the labor
movement's philosophy. The natural and the social environment
are closely related, and I believe that human rights translates in
part to quality of life for all. That includes protection from
environmental assaults on human health. We have a strong
commitment to protecting the urban environment and to
restoring the air and water in our urban areas to levels that are
considered safe to breathe and to drink. I agree with former
United Auto Worker president Leonard Woodcock, who said a
few years ago: "There is today, more than ever before, a
common cause between union members and environmentalists,
between workers, poor people, minorities, and those seeking to
protect our natural resources."
Thus, there are a number of actions that I will take regarding
EPA and labor.
• There will be more direct communications with labor. In recent
months, I have met with the presidents and Executive members
of the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers. We
will continue such meetings with union leaders and with the
rank and file.
• We are sponsoring a series of workshops under the auspices
of the Urban Environment Conference, an alliance of national
labor, civil rights, and environmental organizations formed after
a U AW-sponsored conference on jobs and the environment in
May 1976. The workshops are being held around the Nation and
will focus on all aspects of urban and workplace environmental
issues.
• We have developed a compliance status survey of the steel
industry. Broken down by facility, age of plant, number of
employees, and product line, it should serve as an early warning
system of potential problem areas, i.e. plants which are old,
labor-intensive, dirty, increasingly uneconomic, and which,
therefore, may be shut down.
• We will be working with labor to make information available
on workers' rights and on the anti-blackmail and anti-retaliation
provisions of the various laws.
• We will request labor to supply information to help implement
our toxic substances program.
• We want to involve labor in the early stages of policy-making
in order to make environmental regulations as responsive as
possible.
I repeat, as I stated at the outset, that EPA and the labor force
are not adversaries. To the contrary, we have significant shared
interests and goals, which can best be achieved by cooperation
and understanding. Our primary mission is to protect health,
and there is a clear connection between the workplace
environment and the community. Finally, it is not a question of
jobs or the environment.
The notion of cleanup at the expense of jobs is often a red
herring, and we must recognize that important fact. We have a
great opportunity to form an alliance with labor, and I intend to
take advantage of that opportunity. •
PAGE 3
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Cleaning up Produces Jobs
I hope that the labor movement and the
environmentalists can move closer together.
We need to listen more closely to them
and they need to understand the pressures
that working people face.
—Douglas Eraser, President, UAW, Sept. 3, 1977, from The Nation.
PACK 4
Since its creation in 1970, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
has seen its programs expand to
the point where they are creating many
thousands of jobs and a whole new
industry in pollution control equipment.
There are signs that a number of
leaders in the labor movement appreci-
ate the role EPA is playing in providing
training and employment as well as
environmental cleanup. Leonard Wood-
cock, President Emeritus of the United
Auto Workers, stressed in his keynote
address at the National Action Confer-
ence at Black Lake, Mich., last year the
"common cause between union mem-
bers and environmentalists, between
workers, poor people, minorities, and
those seeking to protect our natural
resources."
One of the uppermost concerns of
the labor movement is jobs, and it is
here that EPA is providing stimulus in a
number of ways.
The most conspicuous example is the
massive construction grants program for
wastewater treatment plants, in which
the Federal Government funds 75 per-
cent of total costs. Originally authorized
outlays of $18 billion have resulted in
employment both on and off-site across
the Nation for many types of workers.
By the end of 1976, more than 2,300
federally funded sewage treatment facil-
ities were being built. Another 412
plants had been completed with funds
provided for in the 1972 Federal Water
Pollution Control Act. President Carter
has proposed that $4.5 billion be appro-
priated this fiscal year so that the Nation
can continue to move toward the goal of
providing needed waste treatment facili-
ties, with an overall commitment of $45
billion over ten years.
This kind of funding carries with it an
impressive number of jobs. Based on
information from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, EPA has estimated that more
than 15,000 man-years of on-site em-
ployment are generated for each $1
billion in construction grant outlays, plus
another 19,500 man-years in off-site em-
ployment, for a total of about 34,500
man-years.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
There are many ways in which envi-
ronmental programs create jobs. A 1974
Bureau of Census survey showed that
there are more than 100,000 Federal,
State, and local government jobs dealing
with air and water pollution and solid
waste control, excluding municipal trash
collection. EPA estimates there are an-
other 300,000 persons employed in the
construction, installation, and operation
and maintenance of pollution control
systems. And many thousands of other
jobs in the pollution control equipment
industry are being created as a result of
the Federal legislation of this decade.
The overall result of environmental
laws, regulations, programs, research,
and enforcement is that roughly 678,000
men and women are directly employed
in pollution control, according to a 1977
study by the National Academy of Sci-
ences. About 543,000 of these are tech-
nicians, skilled operators, clerical, and
unskilled workers, with scientists and
engineers making up the balance.
JSot generally appreciated is the fact
that many of these jobs are in those
areas where they are especially needed.
Nearly 60 percent of total U.S. require-
ments to meet the goals of the Water
Pollution Control Act are concentrated
in EPA Regions II (headquarters in New
York City), III (Philadelphia), IV (At-
lanta) and V (Chicago) where construc-
tion industry unemployment has ranged
from 20 to 30 percent. What this means
is that the EPA construction grants
program is providing an economic stim-
ulus—and will continue to do so in the
future—to areas that have been suffering
from serious problems in joblessness in
the building trades and related types of
work.
Because many environmental controls
have been installed to meet various
standards, the pollution control equip-
ment industry is a rapidly growing one.
According to a study by A.D. Little,
Inc., approximately 75,000 jobs have
come into being in the 1970's in this
area of the private sector. The export
of such equipment not only is bringing
employment but is helping the U.S.
trade balance. A global survey by the
U.S. Department of Commerce shows
that buyers in 18 other nations pur-
chased in excess of $500 million worth
of air and water pollution control equip-
ment outside their own borders in 1974
and U.S. firms accounted for about
$125 million of those sales.
Furthermore, the U.S. pollution con-
trol industry has shown itself able to
weather times of economic stress. The
President's Council on Environmental
Quality has called the industry "one of
the relatively few areas of job strength"
during the recession of 1974 and 1975,
when environmental regulations
prompted expenditures that would not
otherwise have been made, and put
people to work.
Because they represent an item in
overall corporate budgets, environmen-
tal restrictions in some cases have
helped to bring about unemployment.
EPA operates an %'early warning sys-
tem1' in cooperation with the Depart-
ment of Labor to monitor the impact of
such regulations on jobs, and since 1971
it has learned of 108 plant closings
affecting approximately 19,000 employ-
ees—about one-fiftieth of one percent
of the total labor force. However, many
of the plants were old, marginal opera-
tions where the added expense of envi-
ronmental clean-up was only one of
several factors contributing to the deci-
sion to shut them down. And when
contrasted with the hundreds of thou-
sands of jobs created by environmen-
tally-related projects, the balance sheet
is clearly positive.
As President Carter declared in his
1977 environmental message to Con-
gress:
"/ believe environmental protection is
consistent with a sound economy. Pre-
vious pollution control laws have gener-
ated many more jobs than they have
cost. And other environmental measures
whose time has come—measures like
energy conservation, reclamation of
strip-mined lands, and rehabilitation of
our cities—will produce still more jobs,
often where they are needed most. In
any event, if we ignore the care of our
environment, the day will eventually
Come when our economy suffers from
that neglect."
In addition to jobs, EPA has created
many training programs for men and
women involved in pollution control.
The significance of these cannot be
underestimated in long-range planning,
for without a large and well-trained body
of specialists in this field, no serious
effort at environmental clean-up can
succeed, and with such training in the
increasingly sophisticated methods of
pollution controls, employees will find
doors opening to better job opportuni-
ties.
Since the Agency was established in
1970, more than 36,000 persons have
received operator training in the waste-
water treatment plant program. In addi-
tion, 2,581 persons have received col-
lege training at both the undergraduate
and graduate levels in this program. In
air pollution control, 12,557 persons
have been given special short-term
courses to help improve their skills and
techniques and another 508 have been
awarded oneryear college fellowships.
EPA also has provided courses and
materials for the training in water supply
management of many personnel across
the country.
For years, EPA also has used both
research and development contracts and
cost-sharing grants to help industry in
developing process changes offering new
ways to reduce pollution. While the
basic purpose of these programs is not
to create jobs but to improve pollution
control, the benefits have brought em-
ployment of laboratory technicians and
other research and engineering person-
nel. Under the cost-sharing grants, for
which the Federal Government provides
about 35 percent of the funds, new
processes have been developed that of-
fer substantial savings in water and
energy, while curbing pollution. More
than $60 million in Federal funds have
supported the matching program so far.
There is a growing belief that any
approach to the jobs-environment ques-
tion should include a redirection of eco-
nomic and public works programs into
what Gus Speth, a member of the Coun-
cil on Environmental Quality, has called
"environmentally benign" areas.
In an address this year to the Ameri-
can Bar Association, Speth put it this
way:
"A pro-environment policy could direct
Federal job programs and other eco-
nomic measures toward environmentally
beneficial activities, such as rebuilding
the railroads, recycling programs, the
improvement of public transportation,
energy conservation, the encouragement
of solar energy measures, the rehabili-
tation of old but sound buildings, and
so forth, and away from interstate high-
ways, interceptor sewers, massive water
resources projects, and energy develop-
ments—all environmentally risky and
capital-intensive activities that stress
limited natural resources and require
large amounts of equipment and mate-
rials and only a relatively few, highly
paid workers."
To achieve such a redirection of pro-
grams, it is clear that environmentalists
and labor will have to heed the advice
of UAW President Douglas Fraser and
"move closer together." The dialogue
was formally launched at the National
Action Conference at Black Lake last
year, where leaders of both groups
voiced thejr concerns. The next step
will be to translate this into action. •
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGE 5
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Environmental
and Economic Justice
By Thomas R. Donahue, Executive Assistant to AFL-CIO
President George Meany
I am pleased to bring to you the
good wishes of President Meany.
While he is an unabashed polluter
and probably a walking violation of the
Clean Air Act—with that ever-present
cigar—he is on the other hand an expert
on conservation—insofar as that term
means the preservation of a national
natural resource over long, long years.
A policy statement of the trade union
movement has noted that conservation
of the Nation's natural resources is "a
subject of the most vital importance to
our people. Avariciousness on the one
hand and an almost criminal careless-
ness on the other already have laid
waste a large part of these resources.
The Executive Council is instructed to
assist in any legitimate movement which
has for its objective this protection."
A similar convention resolution called
upon the government "to provide ade-
quate machinery and more liberal funds
for the restoration and protection of our
natural resources, the cleaning up of
our rivers and streams and the extension
of opportunity for outdoor recreation
The first of those statements was
adopted by the American Federation of
Labor at its convention in 1908 nearly
three-quarters of a century ago com-
menting on the report of President Theo-
dore Roosevelt's Inland Waterway
Commission.
The second statement is dated 1929,
nearly a half century ago. In the late
1940's. both the old AFL and the CIO
helped to enact the first Federal water
pollution control legislation.
Since the merger of the AFL and the
CIO, there has been a succession of
This article has been adapted from a
speech by the author last year tit the
National Action Conference, Black
Lake, Midi.
updated Executive Council and Conven-
tion policy resolutions on the natural
and human environment—but even
more importantly, there have been ac-
tive efforts to support legislation, poli-
cies and programs to clean up this
country's dirty air and water and to
deal with its vast outpouring of solid
wastes.
I don't mean to pretend that the
environment and its protection and en-
hancement have always been the prime
concern of the AFL-CIO, but only to
say that our concern about these matters
is not new.
Let me take a minute to remind you
of what the AFL-CIO is and what it is
not.
It's 14.2 million people—organized in
over 50,(XX) local unions—in 115 national
unions functioning through 50 State fed-
erations and over 700 central bodies—
holding over 450,000 general member-
ship meetings a year and electing demo-
cratically over 100,000 officers every
year.
Add to that the 3 plus million people
represented by the UAW and Teamsters
and you begin to have a sense of what
an amazingly complex and diverse insti-
tution American labor really is.
A second aspect of the labor move-
ment to keep in mind is that it has at
least two different levels of existence
and functions.
There is first the level of job unionism
or shop unionism—the level of basic
membership participation and the level
at which the expression of our unionism
is largely concentrated on the job and
on protection of the workers' job-related
interests
The second function of the American
trade unions is their social unionism.
The strongest and, I think, purest
expression of that social unionism has
been in the Federation's continuing es-
pousal of the cause of the poor, the
unorganized, the near non-participants
in our society.
Against that background, let me set
out the cardinal principles of the AFL-
CIO policy statement on the environ-
ment adopted by our 1975 Convention:
l."The AFL-CIO remains firmly
committed to protecting, restoring and
improving the Nation's environment. At
the same time, we stand firm in our
conviction that environmental policies
and programs can and must be recon-
ciled with the employment and energy
requirements that are necessary to eco-
nomic progress.
2. "We firmly oppose any policies or
programs which would move this Nation
in a disastrous no-growth posture."
I believe that some of the misunder-
standing which arises between ourselves
and some environmentalist organizations
stems from the fact that the trade union
movement looks at the problem as one
which involves its members most in-
tensely in the day-to-day problems of
the human environment.
We find ourselves, more often than
other groups, caught in the middle of
the debate over the effect of the Na-
tion's commitment to clean up air and
i: 6
HPA JOURNAL
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water and properly dispose of solid
wastes. Environmental organizations
push for policies and programs geared
toward achieving ultimate goals of envi-
ronmental cleanliness, often with inade-
quate consideration of the social and
economic consequences of their propos-
als. Management warns us that further
efforts toward cleaning up the environ-
ment would restrict economic expan-
sion, threaten future job creation,
threaten existing employment, and need-
lessly divert capital resources from pro-
ductive purposes.
The job argument is particularly wor-
risome to us in the midst of high unem-
ployment, inflation which strikes us all,
and a serious long-range problem of
obtaining future energy supplies.
Our own concept of the scope of
environmental problems faced by Amer-
icans begins with the worker both on
the job and where he lives.
Sixty million workers spend 25 per-
cent of their active years in establish-
ments where they may be—or are—
exposed to deadly safety and health
hazards—most of which are only begin-
ning to be dealt with under the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Law. That is
our first environmental concern.
We also look at the environment and
our use of it in terms of how it affects
the poor who know only unemployment,
bad housing, and penniless old age.
A few years ago, a young doctor
working with the rural poor in the Mis-
sissippi Delta had this to say about the
two views of pollution—of the poor and
of the affluent—when he testified before
a Congressional committee:
"For many people in poverty, partic-
ularly rural poverty, the recent national
focus on the environment must seem a
bitter irony. For us, the issue is not
pollution, but survival—and it always
has been. The rural poor have been
drinking dirty water, fighting the ele-
ments, living amid society's garbage
long before the Nation became con-
cerned about the smog on Park Avenue,
industrial pollution in Lake Erie or the
exhaust fumes from automobiles on the
Los Angeles freeways. I am not, of
course, opposing that national concern.
I am asking you to look at some of the
environmental pictures of poverty and
consider whether we are entitled to
cynicism if you neglect the human envi-
ronmental needs of the poor—literally—
in favor of a focus on environmental
quality for the affluent."
In a splendid piece in the New York
Timex magazine section. Bayard Rustin,
President of the A. Philip Randolph
Institute and National Chairman of So-
cial Democrats, USA, develops the ar-
guments against the advocates of no-
growth. He says, and we in the trade
union movement believe, not that "less
is more" but that "less is less" for
more people and less may be nothing
for those who already have very little.
Rustin credits the environmental
movement for its significant contribution
to the struggle for more humane social
order by forcing society to take a new
look at many previously accepted pat-
terns of economic and cultural behavior,
but notes that "some in the vanguard of
the environmental movement have often
sought policies that are detrimental and
in some cases—the growth controversy
being the most significant example—de-
structive of the needs of those less well
off."
Growth provides our ability to reduce
poverty. It is a precondition for the
success of manpower programs directed
to the needs of the poor. It provides the
resources to build the housing, supply
the medical services and upgrade the
schools in the inner cities. Without it,
we will never mobilize domestic political
support for domestic social programs,
let alone for policies that offer new
hope to the emerging nations.
So we trade unionists look at the
environment, first as it affects the
worker on the job and in the commu-
nity, and secondly as it affects the poor
and their aspirations.
Finally, we know that the labor move-
ment must in fairness adjust its own
view of the environment to consider
that we all. as Franklin Roosevelt once
said, are inextricable threads of the
seamless web of life. The myriad of
living creatures, including the soil, veg-
etation, water, and the entire life support
system of this planet, its cycles and
seasons, are all intricately interrelated
and the disturbance of one part affects
the working of the whole. The major
disturbances by modem technology of
this delicate balance have proceeded
uncontrolled to where it is a matter of
national and global concern. Every
worker must share this concern because
pollution casts its dark shadow over his
life, his family's, and those of succeed-
ing generations. But he can only be
asked to interest himself in the big
picture if everyone else is willing to
interest themselves in his narrow, highly
personal, job problem.
continued on page 26
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGE 7
-------
workers'Environmental Protection
Interview with Dr. Irving Selikoff,
Director, Environmental Sciences Laboratory,
Mt. Sinai School of Medicine,
City University of New York.
Q: Dr. Selikoff, can you suggest any-
thing the American worker can do him-
self to lower the risks to his health from
environmental pollutants?
A: Let me quote Thomas Legge, chief
health inspector and a specialist in lead
poisoning in England, 67 years ago. He
said: "Until the employer has done
everything possible, the worker can do
nothing."
The problem is compounded by an-
other factor—and the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration is
grappling with it, too—until we know
what the hazards are, the worker can
do nothing.
Clearly, the worker is—as we all
are—in the difficult position of not being
able to do anything about something of
which he is ignorant. It would have
been impossible for a vinyl chloride
polymerization worker to consider what
he could do for himself without knowing
that there was a significant hazard with
regard to vinyl chloride, until the cancer
risk was discovered. He might have
been concerned to protect himself
against very heavy exposures (after all,
these could even cause unconscious-
ness) but he would not have known
that he had to protect himself at very
low levels.
Secondly, it would be impossible for
him to have protected himself if the
company didn't have adequate mainte-
nance in the plant, adequate exhaust
systems, adequate work practices with
regard to reactor cleaning. I suspect,
therefore, that the question is really,
what we can all do—the worker, indus-
try, and the agencies—that would pro-
tect the worker.
The trade unions are very sensitive
about this question, and properly so.
They consider that stress on what the
worker can do for himself is sometimes
used as a "cop-out" on the part of
those who have ultimate responsibility.
Irving J. Selikoff, M.D., is Professor
of Medicine and Director of the Envi-
ronmental Health Sciences Center of
the Mount Sinai School of Medicine,
the City University of New York. A past
President of the New York Academy of
Sciences, he is a widely recognized
specialist on health effects of asbestos.
For example, not too many years ago
it was commonplace to suggest that
workers use respirator devices to pro-
tect themselves against toxic dust in
lieu of adequate industrial hygiene pre-
cautions, despite the fact that these
devices are inappropriate to solve a dust
problem, except for specific circum-
stances, such as breakdowns, temporary
exposures, and unusual situations. In-
dustrial hygiene engineering controls of
the dust source is much to be preferred.
This is also true if we were to trans-
late it into classic EPA terms. What can
residents around a chemical plant do to
protect themselves? They can do very
little unless industry takes appropriate
precautions against environmental con-
tamination. EPA recognizes this by in-
sisting that the industry take these pre-
cautions. We don't depend upon
residents around a facility protecting
themselves.
One might even point to the recent
situation in Rockville, Maryland, with
contamination of areas following the use
of asbestos-content crushed rock. What
could children do to protect themselves
if their school yard was covered with
that crushed rock, releasing asbestos
fibers into the air? They could do very
little. What could drivers do on roads
which were surfaced with such crushed
rock? Very little. Keep the windows
closed? I don't think that's adequate. In
contrast, I am impressed with what the
county administration has been doing to
correct the situation, repaving the roads.
They are not depending upon the indi-
vidual who may not know of the hazard,
or, if he knew, could do very little.
In a brake repair and brake mainte-
nance shop, the worker can do very
little if the air hoses are blowing out the
dust into the garage air rather than
vacuuming it into a container. One
might say, "Well, the worker can do
something for himself. He can insist on
appropriate precautions." Sometimes he
can insist himself out of a job. That is a
fact of life. That's why we have Govern-
ment agencies, why we have EPA and
OSHA. And why they have such impor-
tant roles and important functions.
Q: Do you think any new legislation is
needed to protect the public from what
has been called a major cancer epi-
demic?
A: I think that, by and large, legislation
has been following fairly closely on the
heels of scientific data. Legislation inev-
itably suffers from a lag between the
discovery of problems and the regula-
tory mechanisms that society sets in
place to cope with them. I am impressed
with how much has been done by our
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Congress in the past decade. Consider:
EPA was only set in place in 1970;
OSHA has been actually functioning
only since 1971; the Toxic Substances
Control Act, only since January 1977. I
think public interest groups have made
an important contribution—not merely
in what is generally attributed to them,
prodding, but by assisting in the devel-
opment of the approaches that have
been codified in the Toxic Substances
Control Act and the Occupational Safety
and Health Act, and in the Executive
Order that established EPA, and similar
legislation.
Q: How does the United States com-
pare with other countries in environmen-
tal protection of workers and the general
public?
A: From my experiences around the
world, I doubt whether we or our coun-
try has much of which to boast. Never-
theless, comparatively, I believe that
we now lead the world in institutionaliz-
ing social decision-making with regard
to what we do about environmental
hazards. We haven't really lagged very
much behind the science of the problem,
which has been halting and meager in
the past. Consider that this year is only
the tenth anniversary of the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sci-
ences, which has been providing the
basic research in many areas concerned
with the environment, both occupational
and community. I am not a pessimist.
We have a host of problems, but I
think that we are approaching them with
good sense and vigor. We have some
reason for optimism, the most important
being that we are beginning to identify
what our problems really are.
Environmental cancer is, for example,
in terms of recognition, rather new. Its
development had to await the establish-
ment of the necessary approaches for
its analysis and evaluation. We didn't
simply have to identify agents in the
environment that might cause cancer,
but also to develop means for studying
the risk with which they might be asso-
ciated, in quantitative terms wherever
possible.
Determining what to do with the data
then becomes social decisions. Scientists
can participate in the discussions, but
a major voice must be those who
would suffer the risks, workers or peo-
ple in affected community environ-
ments. Quantitative data are critically
needed for their evaluation, as for that
of industry, labor, regulatory agencies,
and others. If something will cause one
cancer per 200 million people we might
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
do one thing; if it will cause one cancer
per one thousand people, we would
certainly do another.
The development of methods needed
to provide such quantitative information
is required. Epidemiological techniques
needed to study large groups of people
are only recently with us. I say large
groups of people because, in general,
environmental agents are present at low
levels, over the long term. At low levels,
unless the agent is extraordinarily pow-
erful, it will affect only a small percent-
age of people. Such a small percentage
from a statistical point of view, demands
a large body of experience to get reliable
data. The epidemiological approaches
that would allow study of large numbers
of people are not all that old. One good
example is the American Cancer Soci-
ety's studies concerning cigarette smok-
ing, in which one million people have
been followed since 1959. Obviously
this would have been impossible before
the computer.
Q: Do you think there should be a
greater shift from cancer treatment to
cancer prevention ?
A: Cancer treatment is also important.
I don't believe this is an "either/or"
situation. Remember that our identifica-
tion of environmental or occupational
carcinogens allows us, if we have the
will, to protect the next generation of
workers or public exposed in the envi-
ronment. But what of those already
exposed? What of those doomed to die
of bladder cancer because of past expo-
sure to beta naphthylamine or benzi-
dine? What of those likely to die of
angiosarcoma of the liver because of
past exposure to vinyl chloride? What
of those who will die of mesothelioma,
because of past exposure to asbestos?
Or those destined to develop lung can-
cer because of our ignorance in the past
concerning the hazards associated with
coke oven work? Or those who will get
leukemia because of undue benzine ex-
posure? These people deserve, at the
least, everything we can possibly do in
order for us to atone—if I could use a
word of that type—for our ignorance,
our inattention, our unconcern, in the
past. Therefore, treatment of cancer
remains an important obligation.
And perspectives for treatment are
by no means hopeless. Our colleagues
in cancer therapy have made very useful
strides; witness melanoma and Hodg-
kin's Disease. Both in the workplace,
and in the environment in general, there
is now the urgent problem of surveil-
lance and management and treatment of
high-risk groups—people who inadvert-
ently were exposed in the past to agents
which we now know places them at
increased risk of developing cancer in
the future. At present, there is little
surveillance or care for them. I consider
this a social lapse and I strongly urge
that attention be devoted to this as
rapidly as is possible.
Q: Can you give examples of which
groups of workers were exposed in the
past to cancer-causing pollutants?
A: We have identified occupational or
environmental carcinogens by having
studied the health experience of groups
of people. These are the very people
now at risk. We can identify those who
worked in the past with asbestos—as in
shipyards—or who worked near coke
ovens, with nickel, with chromates, with
arsenic, with vinyl chloride, with bis-
chloromethyl ether, or other toxic sub-
stances. These people we know are now
at risk. There is a tissue imprint that
places them at much greater risk than
the rest of us of getting cancer in the
future.
Men and women worked with
beta naphthylamine , or benzidine.
Nobody is following their cases, looking
at their urine, to see if there are cancer
cells present. Bladder cancer is often a
curable disease, if diagnosed early. Sur-
veillance has not been instituted for such
early diagnosis.
We are minimizing rather than maxi-
mizing our chance of properly control-
ling what we know is going to happen
in a proportion of these people, some-
times a very high proportion. Seven to
ten percent of all asbestos workers will
die of mesothelioma. Twenty percent,
one out of every five, of those who
were regularly working with asbestos in
the past, are likely to die in the future
of lung cancer. The Public Health Serv-
ice estimates that there are one million
men and women in the United States
who are now regularly working with
asbestos or who in the past were asbes-
tos workers and who retired or went on
to other jobs. If their experience is the
same as those asbestos workers who
have been so far studied, twenty percent
will die of lung cancer. One of five—
200,000 in the next forty or fifty years.
We can save some of these lives, by
early diagnosis. Not all. I don't know
what proportion we can save, but surely
some. Therefore, the whole question of
surveillance of groups now at high risk
of cancer in the future is a problem of
urgent concern.
Continued on next page
PAGE 9
-------
THE WORKKR AND
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Relying on the usual methods of
workers fending for themselves is inef-
fective. In one group of asbestos work-
ers, of 59 lung cancer cases seen in a
small group of 1.249 asbestos workers,
from 1963 to 1975, 57 died. Of 31
mesotheliomas. 31 are dead. There is,
in my opinion a social obligation to try
to help these people. How we meet it is
a matter for urgent review by industry,
which has responsibility, by labor,
which has responsibility, and by govern-
ment representing society.
Q: Do von think we need a new "can-
cer-prevention" agency tit the federal
level, or is the division of responsibility
among OS HA, EPA, HEW, and so on
the he.st way lo handle the problem'.'
A: I am not enthusiastic about frag-
menting science. Cancer is part of biol-
ogy. 1 don't believe we should fragment
scientific research more than is currently
inevitable.
However, in terms of practical prob-
lems, there may be reason for something
like this approach, in long-term surveil-
lance in one or another agency. This
perhaps should he now considered in
the national health planning that is going
on in Senator Kennedy's committee and
elsewhere. Basic research with regard
to environmental cancer has been until
now largely the burden of the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sci-
ences, but that has been limited to
research. We should continue that, but
go beyond in terms of management and
surveillance, and this cannot be the
charge of National Institute of Environ-
mental Health Sciences.
The American Cancer Society also
has important interest in environmental
cancer. For the past 15 years it has
been almost a voice in the wilderness
with its major attention to problems
such as smoking, asbestos, vinyl chlo-
ride, and other occupational carcinogens
in its Environmental Cancer Research
Project—the joint program of the Cancer
Society and our laboratory, devoted to
this—and the American Cancer Society
will not only continue this but is expand-
ing such concerns. This has been under
Dr. H. ('. Hammond and myself.
Hut the American Cancer Society
does not and cannot fulfill the new role
that is needed: what to do with the
information that is being obtained. There
is going to be much more: we are only
at the beginning of the collection of
much critical information. The govern-
mental agencies have a unique responsi-
bility now of what to do with that data.
including development of surveillance
approaches, in which labor and industry
will be involved.
The identification of the causes of
environmental cancer and occupational
cancer permit the next question to be
asked: What can we do about it? Our
problem is ultimately how to prevent
disease. It's only in the last ten to
twenty years that we have had this
opportunity. We couldn't advise people
not to smoke cigarettes until we knew
what the effects were of cigarette smok-
ing. We couldn't determine how vinyl
chloride should be polymerized until we
knew what the hazards were. So that
these are good problems, uncomfortable
ones, but good ones. EPA will probably
always have an uncomfortable existence
but a good one, because it meets prob-
lems, but simultaneously then contrib-
utes to their solution.
Q: Do you think EPA needs more au-
thority than it now has?
A: Let me speak as a scientist. EPA
should have all the authority and legal
wherewithal to look to the correction of
the conditions that scientists will iden-
tify. So that ultimately the law that is
needed depends upon the science that's
provided. To that extent, scientists are
concerned with the law and are con-
cerned with the capacity that EPA has.
or doesn't have. But once the science
and the problems are defined, I believe
the expertise of your legal and adminis-
trative people will have to determine
whether their authority is adequate for
the problems. There are unity and inter-
action, correlation between scientists
and legal and administrative staff. There
is symbiosis, based upon joint concern
with an ultimate solution.
Q: Do yon feel the Delaney amendment
to the Food and Drug Ac: prohibiting
the addition of any known carcinogen
to food, thereby creating situations like
the saccharin ban, should be modified?
A: I have yet to see anything with the
saccharin situation that has led me to
identify a better approach than the De-
laney clause. The Delaney clause is
really a statement that, in the present
state of our ignorance, we cannot make
definitive, data-based qualitative or
quantitative decisions concerning carcin-
ogenic agents. It is sometimes said that
the clause does not permit scientific
judgment. This is an error. FDA is
required to scientifically evaluate whether
data are adequate to determine if a food
additive is a carcinogen, if experiments
were properly done, for example. Their
judgment is needed. Once they deter-
mine that the substance can cause can-
cer, however, they no longer can exer-
cise judgment on whether or not it is to
be allowed in food, or how much, if
any—a decision neither they nor anyone
else at present can make with certainty.
The Delaney clause speaks to the
insufficiency of scientific information,
rather than to the obtuseness of admin-
istrators. One day, perhaps, science will
be able to tell us better whether this or
that agent will or will not be associated
with cancer in humans. At the moment
it is difficult, in the absence of epide-
miological information. We do not yet
have a sure bridge between animal ob-
servations and infallible prediction of
subsequent human disease.
Q: Is asbestos still a problem in the
workplace or hare we taken proper
controls against it?
A: In many places much has been done
to decrease the risk of asbestos disease.
In some places very little has been
done. To the extent that we haven't
done enough even in the "good places,"
we should complete that job, and where
there has been very little done, we have
to be extraordinarily vigorous in obtain-
ing rapid control. This is a potentially
deadly exposure. Controls are known.
Not using them bears an inevitable.
irreversible risk and it is essential to
complete the translation of scientific
information into the social positions
needed to minimize and prevent disease.
Measures for asbestos control are now
social decisions, no longer scientific-
ones. •
i'.\(ii in
t.'OA ICM TDM A I
-------
Environmental Jobs for Minorities
Unemployment in the Northeastern
United States is at epidemic pro-
portions among minorities. A
front-page story in the Washington Post,
ironically appearing over Labor Day
weekend this year, noted that jobless-
ness nationwide among blacks reached
14.5 percent in August, as high as it has
been for any month since World War
II. Among black teenagers, it reached
40.4 percent compared to about 15 per-
cent for white teenagers.
The situation in some respects is even
worse in the Northeast. According to
U.S. Labor Department figures, unem-
ployment among minority teenagers in
1976 in Baltimore reached 49.6 percent,
in Philadelphia 47.2 percent, and in New
York City 44 percent. Joblessness for
all minorities, both teenage and adult,
was 19.2 percent in Philadelphia last
year.
One of the positive benefits of envi-
ronmental cleanup, as detailed else-
where in this issue of EPA Journal, is
the creation of hundreds of thousands
of jobs to help meet new environmental
standards. The construction grants pro-
gram, the pollution control industry, and
related areas are all stimulating demand
for labor—skilled, unskilled, laboratory
technicians, air sampling specialists, and
building trades workers.
The problem is that in the environ-
mental field as elsewhere, minorities
have thus far failed to get their fair
share of jobs. Many are unaware of
opportunities in environmental work.
Others lack appropriate skills. And
many in inner cities still consider envi-
ronment a special preserve of suburban-
ites or are simply uninterested in the
subject because so many other concerns
are pressing in on them.
To meet this challenge, EPA has
awarded a grant to the National Urban
League to conduct a field survey of
current environmental job recruitment
and training programs in six cities along
the so-called "Bos-Wash Corridor:"
Boston, New York, Newark. Philadel-
phia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.
The project will have four major ob-
jectives:
• Develop a strategy for future recruit-
ment and training of minorities in para-
professional, skilled, and semi-skilled
jobs in the environmental protection
field.
• Find out how many now have jobs in
the public and private sectors as a result
of EPA programs.
• Forecast employment in the construc-
tion grants program.
• Document the findings of the study
and its proposed strategy with a slide-
show or videotape.
Urban League project manager of the
$62,000 job opportunities study is Paul
Danels, a member of the executive
board of the New York City Council on
the Environment and the Regional Ad-
visory Council to the New York State
Department of Environmental Conser-
vation. He also is chairman of the Citi-
zen's Advisory Committee to the New
York Areawide 208 Project. Michael G.
Moore, a manpower development spe-
cialist in the Office of Federal Activities,
is EPA project officer administering the
grant.
The Urban League is intimately famil-
iar with inner city minority problems. A
non-profit community service agency,
the League was founded in 1910 to
secure equal opportunity for blacks and
other minorities. It has long been active
in employment, training and labor af-
fairs, problems of the minority aged.
education, housing, health, child care,
and related social concerns. It functions
through 109 affiliated Urban Leagues in
major U.S. cities.
The League has extensive experience
in identifying job opportunities and re-
moving barriers for minority citizens
seeking employment. It is currently op-
erating the Community Urban Environ-
ment project (CUE) through a grant
from the U.S. Department of Health,
Education and Welfare/Office of Envi-
ronmental Education. CUE is preparing
a training program to develop a minority
interest in environmental issues. The
Urban League's research department
also is conducting an 18-month study
for the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development of job devel-
opment strategies that have effectively
increased employment opportunities for
disadvantaged groups in inner cities.
The study will focus on local jobs that
can be created using Community Block
Grant funds.
"It appears to me," commented Os-
car McCrary, research director of the
League's Environmental Jobs Opportu-
nity Study, "that the study for EPA
should find a wealth of employment
opportunities exist in the fields of air
and water pollution control and solid
waste at the professional and subprofes-
sional level.
"What does this mean for minorities1.'
As more industries conform to legisla-
tion such as the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act and the Clean Air Act, and
therefore use pollution abatement equip-
ment, more jobs will become available.
It appears that what will be needed are
on-the-job and vocational training, pos-
sibly training at the community college
level, and a continued expansion of
apprenticeship programs much like
those that the League administers in its
Labor Education Advancement Program
(LEAP), "he said.
The findings and recommendations of
the study will be completed December
15, 1977. •
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PACK II
-------
A Union's Fight for Clean Air
By Frank Corrado
When he was a kid growing up
in Hammond, Ind., in the
shadow of the steel mills, Mike
Olszanski got tired of his father's con-
stant talk about trade unionism.
"He talked union all the time, so
when I got a little older I rebelled. I
thought he was full of it. But then I
went to work in the mills. I found he
was right, as usual."
Olszanski, age 32, was remembering
his younger days before he took on the
responsibility as a father, and as a union
official with Local 1010 of the United
Steelworkers, which was meeting this
late October Saturday morning in a
downtown Chicago hotel with other lo-
cals that comprise the big Chicago -
Indiana District 31.
"They don't make them like my dad
anymore," he went on. "He was an
active trade unionist. He always went
to meetings, but never really aspired to
be a union officer. Now, most people
that go to union meetings today are just
looking for something themselves. We're
getting complacent."
That rebellious nature of Mike Ols-
/.anski was showing through again. But
it may come with the territory. Olszan-
ski after all does belong to District 31,
that produced Eddie Sadlowski, unsuc-
cessful challenger last year in the battle
to succeed I.W. Abel, retiring president
of the Steelworkers union.
The big issue at this Saturday morning
meeting was the outlook for the Ameri-
can steel industry itself, currently press-
ing its case for government help in the
wake of sagging production and in-
creased plant layoffs.
"Our situation at Inland is better than
most," said Olszanski. "Inland has a
modernized plant, only one plant, so
they can't really move. Anyway, the
company's been ahead of the pack. It's
very profitable and there have been
only a few layoffs. It's not at all like
the rest of the mills.
"But our workers are concerned for
the long term and we're concerned for
our brothers and sisters in other mills.
And we're not buying what the compa-
nies say. Trouble is you don't know
Frank Corrado is Director, Public and
Inter-Governmental Affairs, Region V.
PAC;I- i")
Mike Olszanski and his children
whether to believe them. None of them
are ever willing to open the books."
Not only is he a strong union man
like his father, but Olszanski is also an
unabashed environmentalist.
Besides being a shop steward in the
Inland's cold strip mill at and on the
executive board of Local 1010, Olszan-
ski is chairman of the Local's unique
environmental committee.
"Our first priority is the coke plant
situation at Inland. There may not be a
coke battery in the country that meets
Occupational Safety and Health Agency
standards." The committee participated
in negotiations between EPA's Region
V and Inland over coke battery prob-
lems, which eventually resulted in con-
sent decrees. "We felt we ought to be
participating in those meetings to make
sure there were no closed-door deals."
Olszanski's committee, which has
about 30 members, then went on to
bring the coke battery issue into last
year's contract negotiations with Inland.
"We had 20 pages on coke plants in
our demands," says Olszanski. "We
wanted increased crew sizes for opera-
tion and maintenance, also incentives
tied to reduction in emissions."
But the Company turned down the
union's solution.
"Steelworkers should analyze the
companies they work for, find out how
far they can push for environmental
cleanup. You obviously couldn't push
pollution controls at a plant that's got a
lot of problems like Youngstown. But.
if you've got the facts, they can't black-
mail you."
Olszanski is taking the message of
union activism in environmental cleanup
beyond Local 1010, "We've asked for a
'Department of Environmental Protec-
tion' to be set up by the International in
Pittsburgh. We need someone for liaison
to EPA."
Olszanski through District 31 is also
working with Region V in pulling to-
gether a series of meetings with locals
throughout the Midwest. It's an attempt
to explain new provisions of the Clean
Air Act, to encourage participation in
enforcement activities, and to establish
environmental committees in other lo-
cals.
Olszanski comes on strong, young,
smart, and aggressive. But he didn't get
into the union's inner councils easily.
"I lost in union elections so many times
that I finally told my wife T'll just hang
it up.' She said 'No you won't.' I was
really surprised because all this union
stuff had been a strain on the marriage.
But Barbara supported me and I made
it."
Olszanski in many ways is a younger
version of the current District 31 chief,
Jim Balonoff, who took over the district
after just a year as president of the
Local, when Sadlowski gave up the
District 31 job to run against Lloyd
McBride for union president.
Olszanski says of Balanoff: "Jim was
the first district director in the steel-
workers union to really take a hard
look at environmental issues. District 31
has really pioneered in going after coke
plant emissions. Without his support we
could never have got this environmental
thing off the grou nd."
Like many steeiworkers in Northwest
Indiana, Olszanski has moved out of
Hammond looking for a rural environ-
ment for his children Sally, 10, and
Robert, 11. "I guess 1 ran away from
the problems in Hammond," he admits.
"but now I'm living in an area facing
the problems of suburban development."
Like his father, Olszanski sees his
future tied to the union.
"In the mills you don't have any
respect without the union. You're at
the mercy of the boss without the union.
There's no job security without the
union. I remember when I was younger.
working for a little supply house. One
day the boss's kid gets out of high
school and wants my job. He got it."«
1,'IM 1M1IDMA1
-------
Urban workshops
Nearly a dozen regional workshops
on the general subject of environ-
ment, jobs, and the economy are being
held around the Nation as the result of
a grant by the Environmental Protection
Agency to the Urban Environment Con-
ference, Inc.
The workshops are an outgrowth of
the National Action Conference on Jobs
and the Environment held at Black
Lake, Mich., in May, 1976, under spon-
sorship of the United Auto Workers.
The 1977 workshops are aimed at en-
couraging participation by labor, minor-
ity and environmental groups as well as
the general public in environmental pro-
grams of EPA and other agencies.
The grant, totalling $66,300, was
"awarded in January 1977 and the project
extends through the end of this year.
Back in 1971 the late Senator Philip
Hart of Michigan urged representatives
of environmental, labor and minority
groups to work more closely to achieve
goals they held in common. Largely as
a result of his influence and initiative,
the Urban Environment Conference was
created and has served since then as a
meeting ground for such organizations.
They have continued to work on identi-
fying and advancing mutual interests in
environmental and occupational health,
pollution control, public transportation,
land use and other issues.
Co-chairing the UEC are Rafe Pom-
erance, associate legislative director of
the Friends of the Earth and Coordina-
tor of the National Clean Air Coalition,
and Franklin Wallick, editor of the
United Auto Workers' Washington Re-
port. George Coling is coordinator of
UEC. Its 14-member board of directors
represents a number of groups dealing
with labor, minorities, and civil rights
issues.
At press time for this issue of EPA
Journal, workshops under the EPA
grant had been held in Illinois, Califor-
nia, Texas, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio,
and Minnesota. In November and De-
cember other workshops were sched-
uled in New Jersey, Louisiana, Ne-
braska, and Pennsylvania.
In a recent article on jobs and envi-
ronment, Business Week declared:
"For years, industry has had one ace
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
in the hole in battling Environmental
Protection Agency regulations. It could
almost routinely count on the support
of labor unions simply by threatening to
shut down plants and eliminate jobs if
antipollution rules were too onerous."
But the magazine noted that a truce
may be in the making between unions
and environmentalists, and cited labor's
recent support of legislation such as the
Toxic Substances Control Act as an
example.
Actually such support is not alto-
gether new. The United Steelworkers
and the UAW, for example, helped to
lead the "Breathers' Lobby" that agita-
ted for clean air legislation back in the
1%0's.
However, the Black Lake conference
last year has been widely accepted as a
significant turning point in union-envi-
ronmentalist relations, a meeting where
representatives of both interests realized
that they needed to cooperate on achiev-
ing social objectives. "It demonstrated,"
Coling told the magazine, "that there
are a lot of myths built up as barriers,
but it showed that these myths could be
overcome and the groups could work
together."
One of the most heavily attended and
successful EPA-funded workshops was
held in San Francisco October 5, under
auspices of David Jenkins & Associates
for the Longshoremen's Union and
Sierra Club. The tone was established
by Mike McCIoskey of the Sierra Club,
who declared, "Environmental protec-
tion cannot be made at the cost of
social justice; similarly, social justice
cannot be made at the expense of envi-
ronmental justice."
Although there was general recogni-
tion by participants that labor and envi-
ronmentalists would sometimes be in
conflict in the future and pursue sepa-
rate paths, they also would find grounds
for mutual support. McCIoskey cited, for
example, his organization's support of
protection of farmworkers from pesti-
cides and protection of coal miners from •
black lung disease, as well as the Hum-
phrey-Hawkins bill for full employment
and job relocation of those workers
affected by factory shutdowns.
San Francisco Mayor George Mos-
cone, who opened the conference, said
that based on his experience, bringing
together labor, environmentalists and
community leaders had usually resulted
in viable solutions to civic problems.
He cited the nearby Yerba Buena devel-
opment project as an example of how
these constituencies could work to-
gether.
In a statement on the EPA grant, the
Urban Environment Conference noted
that a number of participants in the
Black Lake Conference had subse-
quently begun efforts at the local and
State level to reach better understanding
between unions and environmental
groups. The new EPA-UEC project, it
emphasized, is complementing these ac-
tivities.
The regional workshop schedule for
November and December included
meetings in Cleveland sponsored by the
Northern Ohio Lung Association on
"Environmental Regulations and Their
Effect on Ohio's Economy" Nov. 2-3;
in Minneapolis sponsored by the Metro
Clean Air Committee and the American
Lung Association of Hennepin County
on "People, Jobs and the Environment"
Nov. 5; in New Orleans sponsored by
the American Lung Association of Lou-
isiana on "Environment and Economy:
Conflict?" Nov. 11-12; in Morristown,
N.J. sponsored by the New Jersey Con-
servation Foundation on "Environmen-
tal and Economic Health" Nov. 17-18;
in Omaha sponsored by the Franklin
Community Federal Credit Union on
"Response to Environmental Issues—A
Forum" Nov. 19; and in Philadelphia
sponsored by the Public Interest Law
Center of Philadelphia on "Jobs, Envi-
ronment and Community Action" Dec.
3.
Some of the conferences have suc-
ceeded in establishing regular communi-
cations between urban, labor and envi-
ronmental groups. One outcome of the
workshop held October 29 in Durham,
N.C. for example, was a decision by
the North Carolina Public Interest Re-
search Group, which sponsored the con-
ference, and the Raleigh unit of the
Communications Workers of America
to publish jointly a monthly newsletter
on jobs and environment, as well as
agreement to hold quarterly meetings
on the subject in the future.*
PAGE 13
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NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE AIR PROGRAM
Interview with David G. Hawkins, Assistant Administrator for
Air and Waste Management
Q: What is your assessment i>f the new Clean
Air Act'.'
HAWKINS: It's a very ambitious piece of legislation. It is going
to require Federal. State, and local pollution control agencies to
devote a tremendous amount of effort to the task at hand—a large
task.
I happen to think that the State and local agencies are going to
need more funding and I think that additional funding is going to
have to come from all levels of government including from the
State and local governments, which run those agencies.
In addition, I think that the Governors' offices are going to
have to be increasingly involved in the issue of air pollution
control, because the solution to the problem is not confined just
to the air pollution control agencies.
Total solutions to air pollution, we're discovering, are not
available simply by slapping a piece of control equipment on an
industrial smokestack or an automobile exhaust pipe. Instead
patterns of development and transportation have to be examined.
So a great deal of information regarding the whole area of
growth management needs to be acquired and used for air quality
purposes, as well as for other environmental and social purposes.
This is something that State air pollution control agencies are not
going to be able to do alone.
Q: Where arc we now on ihe transportation
control plans tor cities with special air pollution
problems?
HAWKINS: As you know, the Agency published a large number
of those plans back in 1972 and 1973, but in most areas things
have been pretty much stalemated since then. I hope to be able to
do something positive about this. One reason for the stalemate
was that Congress had been debating amendments to the Clean
Air Act for several years. Now they've completed those amend-
ments and the new Act sets up a schedule for developing plans to
attain the air quality standards.
Those plans are going to require attainment of clean air
standards by no later than 1982 with a possible extension up until
1987 for some pollutants. We think there will be some cities
which will need extensions until 1987.
Dive HaH'kins, Assistant Administrator for Air and Waste
Management and a frequent bic\cle commuter, arrives for work
at EPA Headquarters on a rainy day.
With the 10-year planning frame that the new Act permits.
cities ought to be able to do a great many things in terms of
improving public transportation. And that's really what transpor-
tation control programs are all about: improving public transporta-
tion and other forms of transportation so that there are alternatives
to simply going to work and doing errands in a car all by yourself.
Q: Talking about transportation, is it true that
YOU bike la work three days a week?
HAWKINS: I have a bike locker here and 1 bike as often as
possible. Some weeks it's three days, some weeks it may only be
one day, but I try to do it and I enjoy it. And it's certainly true
that I haven't used my automobile parking space since I've been
at EPA because I don't drive to work.
Q: Will hiking be encouraged as a useful alter-
native means of transportation?
HAWKINS: Every time surveys are conducted in various areas
of the country people indicate that they would ride their bicycles
more if they had safe bike lanes and safe places to store their
bikes once they got to where they were going. So I think much
can be done to encourage bicycling. The Federal Government, for
example, provides a lot of parking spaces at a very nominal cost
to automobile drivers. As far as I know EPA is one of the few
agencies that provides safe storage for bicycles.
Q: What made you decide to give up your
position with the Natural Resources Defense
Council to come to EPA ?
HAWKINS: This was not an easy decision. The way I felt about
it was that if a person familiar with the substantive area of air
pollution control and deeply committed to cleaning up the air was
not willing to come to the Government agency which was
supposed to have the responsibility for doing that, then the whole
subject was kind of a depressing one. because the Agency would
be deprived of the people that cared most about the issue. So I
felt that this was an agency that had a mission that I believed in
and I wanted to try to work at forwarding that mission.
Q: Do you anticipate we'll ever see the Jay
when the Nation's Capital won't be shrouded
with smog, as it was this past summer for
example?
HAWKINS: I hope so. The problem of smog in most of our
major metropolitan areas is going to be one of the programs of
highest priority. We know now that with a coordinated program
to attack hydrocarbon emissions, we can greatly improve air
quality, and greatly reduce the number of days during which we
have bad air pollution problems.
And I hope that smog will be something we can look back on
and say, "Remember when almost every day was hazy during the
summer?" And when we're looking back, I hope we can at the
time be enjoying a large number of days that aren't hazy. It used
to be that way in the past, and I think it should become that way
in the future.
Q: Are you satisfied with the prevention of
significant deterioration measures in the Clean
Air Act?
HAWKINS: Yes, I think Congress made a very good set of
compromises in developing the significant deterioration section. It
also will require a good deal of work, but there is a blueprint
PACK 14
EPA JOURNAL
-------
there for keeping the skies blue. I'm very anxious to try to make
that work, and I think we can do it without causing the economy
to grind to a halt, without interfering with well-balanced growth.
Q: Why is EPA planning on lowering its miles-
per-gallon new car figures next year?
HAWKINS: We want to make sure that the miles-per-galion
figures are believable. We think that the public has got to feel that
they can rely on these numbers. Now that raises the point of the
way in which the public should rely on these numbers.
They never were intended to be and they shouldn't be used as
an absolute guarantee of the mileage that your car will deliver.
Instead they are relative numbers. To really make the best use of
these numbers, you have to look at the numbers for three or four
different types of cars. The car that you're interested in will be
either high, low, or in the middle of that group.
We'll be exploring a number of alternatives; we'll be trying to
get the public's involvement in our study by having public
hearings on this. But as I say, the primary aim is to adjust the
numbers in a way that makes them more believable.
Q: Do you see an inherent contradiction be-
tween more fuel efficient cars and cars which
produce less pollution, as some auto manufac-
turers have suggested?
HAWKINS: No, I don't, and I think that most auto manufacturers
are no longer suggesting this in the strong terms they used to
because they have experienced fuel economy improvements in
recent years in spite of improving the emissions performance.
"if we're after transportation that moves us with minimum fuel
use, as well as with minimum pollution of the air, then we should
be willing to change the technology so as to achieve both of those
purposes. I don't think we have to accept trade-offs between fuel
economy and emissions control.
Q: Are we going to see sealed carburetors in
the future?
HAWKINS: The Agency is going to be proposing regulations to
reduce the effect on emissions which certain adjustable auto
components can have. And while I'm not an expert on everything
that's under the hood, my understanding is that companies have,
in fact, started to produce sealed carburetors and might well want
to go that way to a greater extent in the future. So that may be
one of several options that they will explore in order to minimize
the problems that adjustable components cause in terms of air
quality, emissions, and fuel economy.
Q: // we could cure pollution caused by motor
vehicles, how much of an air pollution problem
would we have left in this country?
HAWKINS: Although autos do account for most air pollution,
• we'd still have a large problem. In many areas, stationary sources
of hydrocarbons are very large contributors to the air quality
problem. The Gulf Coast States are an example of that. They
would still have significant problems, even with no automobile
emissions.
Other problems such as sulfur dioxide and total suspended
particulates are also caused by stationary sources. The problems
of sulfates are of increasing concern in the Midwest and Northeast.
Q: From time to time reports circulate regard-
ing the danger of new emissions of various
sorts coming from catalytic converters. Would
you comment on this?
HAWKINS: These reports are something that I take very seri-
ously, and I want to make sure that we have advance knowledge
of any potential problems. I think we have done a pretty good job
of that in recent years.
But in addition we need to follow up on any reports that may
come out after the fact. There were reports, for example, of
palladium emissions from catalytic converters being a possible
concern. We have found that there is apparently no cause for
concern in this area. The tests that we have done show that the
concentrations of palladium are almost undetectable, they're so
low.
But we're going to do additional analyses to confirm this
conclusion, and we'll definitely act if we need to in order to make
sure that there is no problem from that element or any other
element or compound that would be associated with the emission
control technology.
One of the things that the new Clean Air Amendments do is to
strengthen our authority and responsibility for assessing the
possible side effects of pollution control technology.
Q: Doesn't the Clean Air Act give smelters a
very liberal amount of time for cleaning up?
HAWKINS: Whether it's "liberal" depends on what your views
are about whether they deserve it or not.
I personally think that it is a long period of time, and I think
that it may well create air quality problems in those areas during
that time. It may well tend to stifle technological innovations
which would otherwise have occurred. So I think it was a fairly
generous solution for the smelter industry.
Q: As the Nation moves towards coal as an
energy source, will we jeopardize our clean air
efforts?
HAWKINS: We need not jeopardize our clean air efforts if we
pay attention to what we're doing. If we don't pay close attention
to it, then we could have problems. Coal can be burned fairly
cleanly, but if we don't require clean combustion, there's no
reason to suspect that we will get clean combustion.
We've got to make sure that we require the types of technology
that are available to burn coal cleanly, make sure that technology
is operated and maintained in a way that emissions are minimized,
and make sure that we are dealing with some of the broader
issues such as the total emissions to the atmosphere of sulphur
dioxides and paniculate matter. We must also learn in a timely
fashion about the issue of carbon dioxide.
Q: A recent General Accounting Office report
was Quite critical of our radiation program. Do
you have any comment on this report and what
EPA is going to do about it?
HAWKINS: I read a preliminary draft of that report and I would
agree it was quite critical. The radiation program has provided
comments to the GAO staff that worked on that report. The GAO
staff is assessing those comments now, and whether our comments
will help them prepare a report which reflects the good things the
program is doing, as well as the sources of concern, is something
that you and I will learn when we see the next copy of the report.
But I didn't come to this Agency with any instinct to automati-
cally defend every program that is here. The people that I have
met in the Agency have impressed me as very good people, and I
have faith that they desire and intend to do a good job. But I'm
not going to stop listening to comments from the outside and
criticisms from the outside whether they come from the GAO or
environmental organizations or from industry.
Q: Are you satisfied with the progress being
made in the noise program?
HAWKINS: I think the noise program is doing a very good job
with the resources that it has, but for me to say that I'm
completely satisfied would not be accurate because it would
indicate that I felt the country was doing enough to control noise
pollution. And I don't think that is the case.
I think that the country could do more to wake up to the fact
that noise is a significant environmental problem, one which
disturbs a great many people, one which presents possible adverse
health effects, and which makes the quality of life generally lower
in areas where most people live. •
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGE 15
-------
THE THREE E's
ECONOMICS, ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT
are hearing with increasing
frequency about how the net-
work's of nature are interrelated, inter-
dependent, interconnected. How one's
waste product becomes another's source
of food. How one's grave can become
another's womb. How one person's to-
day can make possible another's tomor-
row. However, the legacy of our indus-
try/technology oriented society has been
to think of systems and knowledge as
separate.
The western tradition has been to
view problem-solving as a linear proc-
ess—with a beginning and end. Yet,
natural systems which support all our
actions interlock in cycles. I am often
amused at posters which say "The En-
vironment—Protect It." In fact, it pro-
tects us—it makes our very existence
possible. Our western ways seem intent
on destroying the interlocking biotic sys-
tems upon which all is dependent. If all
people, not just the naturalists, better
understood nature's patterns, we would
see the obvious need to revise our
human systems of housing, feeding,
transporting, and educating people, to
cite some examples. For we would
choose to interconnect our systems and
nature in mutually supportive ways. In
the long run this proves to be the most
effective in conserving natural re-
sources, and economically viable.
Because of how we look at systems,
we look at the energy crisis, inflation,
unemployment, etc., as separate and
only sporadically connected problems.
We play the game of poker in trying to
find solutions, which is the wrong game
with the wrong objective, to win the
round. We should be playing chess!—
using long term strategies.
The challenge now, is to be able to
make long term assessments in a time
frame that is rapidly shrinking. Time for
Excerpted from a speech by Joan Martin
Nicholson, Director of EPA's Office of
Public Awareness, at the University of Illi-
nois, Champaign, III., Oct. 21, 1977.
PAGE 16
by Joan Martin Nicholson
problem-solving was much longer when
population, the level of production, and
consumer needs were less.
Today we are to focus on the interre-
lationships between economics, energy
and the environment. It is a complex
web. It is difficult for us, with our day-
to-day concerns, to get a handle on
how they relate. Furthermore, we must
look at these three issues very differ-
ently than we presently do.
We aren't going to make any mean-
ingful progress in resolving our eco-
nomic, energy and environmental prob-
lems unless we recognize the folly of
regarding environmental, economic and
energy matters as antithetical to each
other.
To begin with, the natural systems of
the environment are the basis of the
economic activity which makes energy
necessary. Land, air and water re-
sources are the underpinnings to all
human activities. Our energy resources
were created by the interplay of natural
environmental systems. The production
of food and fiber, the basis of our
economic system, is totally dependent
on these natural systems. Given this,
the challenge we all face, and must
recognize, is how to strike a compatible
balance between human activities and
the sustaining capacity of natural envi-
ronmental systems. That challenge
forces us to redefine the problems and
to devise new ways of solving them. If
we fail to do this, we are jeopardizing
our jobs, our food supply, our health
and all other matters critical to our lives
in the long term.
A cancer map of the United States
illustrates how the high incidence of
cancer correlates with heavy industrial
and high population areas. The long belt
of chemical plants and petroleum refin-
eries in New Jersey is called "Cancer
Alley." In many cities the quality of the
air equates with smoking a pack of
cigarettes a day. These two examples
point out the cost to human beings
of sacrificing the environment for
economic priorities.
We are the most energy-intensive so-
ciety in the world. While we constitute
only about six percent of the world's
population, we consume more than one-
third of the total energy output. Thirty
years ago Buckminster Fuller estimated
that the average American had, at his
beck and call, the energy equivalent of
153 people in terms of human energy;
based on fossil fuel energy, each person
now has the equivalent of 400 people.
Current estimates about how long fos-
sil fuel supplies will last are a confusing
array of predictions. Nevertheless, we
recognize the fact these fossil fuels are
finite. Less well recognized is the fact
that so are the environmental systems
that produced these fuels—the airsheds,
watershed, and land resources.
Many contend that to have a strong
economy we must have a large energy
supply to support jobs. Yet, over the
last six years we have used more energy
than ever but unemployment has not
dropped in proportion to the energy
consumed. Meanwhile, increasing medi-
cal costs during this time reflect in part,
an increase in pollution.
The irony is that until very recent
times, water, land and air were free
commodities. Now we not only are
paying increased medical bills, but in-
creases in taxes to reclaim air and water.
It is very difficult to comprehend why
we have changed from designing sys-
tems which took advantage of the free
support of natural systems to those that
don't. Specifically, look at the buildings
we design. We spend millions of dollars
in creating engineering systems to cool
buildings and circulate air. We use a lot
of energy in the cooling process. Win-
dows no longer open to take advantage
of natural air currents. The sun's pat-
terns could reduce costs considerably if
we used heat and light from the sun
more effectively.
Cleaner, healthier air; quieter, less
congested cities; clean rivers and lakes;
adequate open space, particularly in our
EPA JOURNAL
-------
cities; and intelligent land use attract
people to communities. And people
make economic gain possible.
The city of Denver is a perfect exam-
ple of how economic and environmental
matters relate. Fifteen years ago it ap-
peared that everybody in the east was
moving to Denver. The reasons given
were clean air, recreational opportuni-
ties, clean water and lower living costs.
Fifteen years later. West Coast papers
are reporting that some people are be-
ginning to leave Denver. They now find
the air too polluted for their health.
Downtown congestion and increasing
costs for municipal services including
water supply are all problems facing
Denver. Do we really have a choice
between jobs or an environment?
Las Vegas has pumped so much
water out of the ground for drinking
and irrigation that some land areas in
outlying areas have dropped four feet in
the last twenty years, opening large
cracks and posing a possible future
threat to the hotels, casinos and other
big buildings downtown.
A recent Harris Poll indicated that
the American people recognize their
stake in protecting the environment.
Most Americans now "would rather
live in an environment that is clean
rather than in an area with a lot of
jobs," according to the poll.
Environmental programs do not stop
or retard economic growth. It is pollu-
tion—not its control—that limits growth.
Each natural system can absorb and
convert only a limited amount of pollu-
tion.
We must operate within this pollution
allowance. When we exceed this allow-
ance, it becomes enormously difficult to
reclaim the system so that it can sustain
people.
Until recently, corporate institutions
had not included, as within their con-
cern, an assessment of environmental
systems or the pollution allowance. Cor-
porate institutions have based their poli-
cies on the economics of production
and marketing. Their employees are re-
warded for increasing production and
marketing activities. But there is no
institutional mechanism which rewards
corporate employees for practicing en-
vironmental protection. There is no
mechanism that gives a company man-
ager points for guaranteeing that the
environmental systems on which corpo-
rate activity depend will continue to be
viable. Short term gains reflected in
annual reports tend to preempt long
range planning in the same way that our
election practices do.
Then there is the problem of capital
funds for environmental protection. To-
day money is expensive. Corporations
go to money markets for funds to spend
on environmental protection. This ex-
penditure is designated, in the corporate
world, as a nonproductive expenditure;
that is, capital not used to generate
more products or demand. Furthermore,
the corporation must pay interest on
the loan it took out to meet environmen-
tal standards. Is it lost capital? A non-
productive expense? It depends on
which pocket you're looking into! Does
the expenditure not benefit corporate
economic growth? To build a water
treatment system or an air scrubber
system requires materials and creates
jobs. Standard Oil of California recently
announced an addition of 500 new jobs
that were environmentally related. Jobs
mean more money in more people's
pockets and that money may well mean
that the employed consumer may better
be able to afford the very products that
the corporation is marketing. In fact.
capital expenditures for environmental
protection generate not only jobs, but a
new source for the consumer's ability
to spend.
If you or I went into a factory and
started slugging away with a sledge
hammer at its delicate equipment—we
would be locked up. But, in fact, too
many corporate production practices
slug away at the very delicate mecha-
nisms of nature which are the basis of
corporate productivity. And when natu-
ral systems become so contaminated
that people must pay higher local and
State taxes to clean them up, then they
have less to spend as consumers. And
what about higher health insurance pre-
miums both the corporation and con-
sumer must pay: lost production time
because of illness, higher municipal and
State taxes; greater energy needs to
obtain potable water; damaged soils
from nearby farms—our food banks;
lost recreational use of rivers and
beaches; the loss of community income
from recreation-related employment?
These are debits we all incur when
we look at energy, economics and envi-
ronment as unrelated and separate. The
World Bank is looking at these matters
of relatedness through the concept of
additionality—a concept that adds on
the economics of protecting host nations
from destroying their environment as
well as cultural fabric.
Corporations worry that the consumer
will not pay the added cost of pollution
control or that then competitors will not
make equal control expenditures. This
is why we need national standards.
Let's look at a head of lettuce. The
price of the head of lettuce includes the
cost of spraying the lettuce with a pesti-
cide. But it does not include the cost
that I, in ten years, could face if the
pesticide residue gives me cancer. How
many unrecognized debts because of
cancer, sterility and other ill effects
caused by pollutants are consumers as-
suming? We do not know! How much
better if the costs were visible and
reflected the expense of caring for the
health and welfare of the consumer and
the environment. To pay for the protec-
tion of our natural systems which in
turn supports economic and human wel-
fare generates capital back to the corpo-
rations to help underwrite their expend-
itures for pollution control. The cost of
pollution protection also encourages the
development of closed production sys-
tems which generate less pollution and
use less energy.
How we use energy has profound
effects on both the environment and
economics. As we turn to increased
strip mining, oil from shale production,
and use nuclear power, we must be
certain that environmental systems can
continue to support production activities
such as farming, fishing, tourism, etc.
How sound is it to pick cherries in
Oregon, ship them to New Jersey to be
dyed red, formerly with #2 dye which
is cancer producing, then ship these
same cherries back to Los Angeles for
packaging and distribution? How many
hydrocarbons does interstate trucking
spew in the air'? What do those cherries
cost by the time they reach the con-
sumer? How much does the farmer get?
It would be interesting to assess the
real cost.
When we focus on economic expe-
diency and ignore environmenta! consid-
erations, we may be denying ourselves
Continued on next page
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PACK 17
-------
THE THREE E'S
a stable job future by creating "false
bottom" needs. A false bottom need is
created when millions of dollars are
spent to convince people they need a
product that they don't really require.
For instance the promotion of redwood
decks or redwood patio furniture. Ce-
dars grow readily among the redwoods.
However, harvesting cedars requires se-
lective cutting and means many small
pieces of wood. So the cedars are
sprayed with herbicides and the more
profitable redwoods are cultivated. But
redwoods don't grow fast enough, and
reforestation programs on land owned
by the timber industry are not sufficient
to meet the "public" demand. Hence
the appeal of redwoods on public lands.
Many jobs were created by "false
needs" marketing based on redwoods.
These jobs are now in jeopardy as we
decide redwood public lands should be
protected to preserve airsheds and wa-
tersheds as well as for scenic beauty.
Paper diapers are turning out to be
a mixed—and costly—blessing. Plastic-
lined paper diapers are overloading the
capacity of community waste treatment
facilities, running up costs as well as
energy consumption.
We are just beginning to come to
grips with the economic and environ-
mental effects of toxic chemicals. EPA's
Administrator. Douglas M. C'ostle, has
pointed out that the United States pro-
duces some 30,(XK) different chemical
compounds. Every year about 1,000
new chemicals are introduced into
American commerce, often without suf-
ficient knowledge of how they will affect
people or the natural environmental sys-
tems. We've created jobs based on these
compounds. And too often the people
in the factory making them or in the
field applying them face health risk and/
or a job loss risk—a sad dilemma.
Tris and polyvinyl chloride were
around for years before we learned that
they were carcinogenic. PCB, the elec-
trical insulating material developed in
the 1930's. promises to be another envi-
ronmental anil therefore economic dis-
aster. Production of PCB's stopped last
year, but the experts at EPA tell me
PCB's will continue to seep slowly into
our rivers and streams for the next 20
to 30 years. According to the U.S.
News and World Report, the total prod-
uct value of PCB's was about $475
million. That's a lot of money, until you
compare it with the damage PCB's in-
flict in poisoned fish, cancer bills and
contaminated water.
Continued use of PCB's would have
PAGK 18
virtually wiped out commercial fishing
in the Great Lakes, an industry taking
in about $100 million a year. A consult-
ant to the Department of Environmental
Protection in New York reported that it
would cost about $150 million to clean
up the PCB's from a short, 36-mile
segment of the Hudson River. And yet,
we say: Economics or the Environment!
Look at the damage done by kepone
to the James River and the fisheries of
Chesapeake Bay—a body of water de-
scribed by H. L. Mencken as the
world's largest protein factory.
The selection of Gross National Prod-
uct (GNP) as a main criterion for evalu-
ating the Nation's economic health has
served to mislead the public on energy
and employment issues.
GNP is the market value of all goods
and services produced in the economy
over the course of a year. As far as
GNP is concerned, everything that
costs money is considered a benefit.
GNP includes expenditures for desirable
items—such as for energy, housing, ed-
ucation, food, etc., but without taking
into account whether they are made
available efficiently or safely. GNP also
includes costs of items not generally
considered as production: disease treat-
ment, pollution clean-up, weapons pro-
duction and sales, wars, as well as
unemployment insurance, workmen's
compensation, welfare payments, etc.
Some analysts believe that the only
part of the GNP which is actually in-
creasing these days is that part created
by the costs of pollution, environmental
degradation and human suffering caused
by wasteful, inefficient and dangerous
methods of production (especially of
energy).
A recent Harris poll has indicated
that a growing number of people believe
the quality of life has generally deterio-
rated over the past decade. But the
GNP has been increasing, despite some
temporary decreases in "growth" rates
during the '74-75 recession. Thus, al-
though individuals believe the quality of
life has gotten worse, according to the
GNP, the economy has gotten bigger
and better.
By any measure you care to make, a
bankrupt environment ultimately leads
to a bankrupt economy.
We are fortunate that change is al-
ways an option of the future. As we
look to the future is interrelating the
"Three E's" pie-in-the-sky dreaming?
If I have a job as a housekeeper, and
I have accumulated three large bags of
trash in cleaning my house, what would
people think if I took those three bags
of trash and put them on my next door
neighbor's porch and then rang the bell
and said. "These bags of debris have
come from doing my job. It is your
responsibility to get rid of them"? This,
in fact, has been the mentality of the
old frontier. Today, there is a new
frontier. A frontier of technology, inte-
grated systems, and the challenge of
designing new processes.
History is replete with powerful civi-
lizations which were destroyed by ne-
glecting the natural environmental sys-
tems which supported them.
Educators have a tremendous oppor-
tunity—and responsibility—to synthe-
size knowledge, to get it out of the
convenient boxes of academic disci-
plines, to have knowledge relate to peo-
ple in their communities, to introduce
humanism to science and technology.
We need to design systems and prod-
ucts which:
1. Avoid damage to the natural envi-
ronment.
2. Lead to a reduced consumption of
finite natural resources including energy
resources.
3. Encourage the use of materials
which can be recycled within the natural
systems or within our industrial sys-
tems.
4. Avoid planned obsolescence.
5. Are sensitive to employment needs,
abilities and opportunities.
6. Are cost competitive in the mar-
ketplace.
There are no limits to growth, to
innovation, to creativity, to the human
spirit. The limits are to space, to waste.
to how long we confront issues the
same old way. For the first time, in the
history of our species, we cannot foul
our nest and move on. We have to
remain where we are—in our urban
decay—in our suburban sprawl, or our
poisoned land, by our contaminated
streams. We must integrate our ways
with nature, for the bill has come due.
Paying it is the real challenge of the
seventies and the eighties. •
F.PA JOURNAL
-------
CRACKDOWN ON FEDERAL AGENCIES
"As you know, over the past few years EPA personnel have been
negotiating with the managers of your Federal facilities to correct pollution
problems ... yet these installations continue to be in violation . . . For
our part, we would like to cooperate with you in any way possible to bring
about prompt resolution of these problems and avoid judicial action."
—EPA Deputy Administrator Barbara Blum, in a letter to heads of polluting Federal agencies.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency has launched a cleanup
program directed at a large and
persistent polluter, the Federal Govern-
ment.
Deputy Administrator Barbara Blum
has notified eleven agencies that immedi-
ate action must be taken to assure that
Federal facilities meet the same air and
water pollution requirements applied to
private industry and municipalities. The
eleven include the Departments of Army,
Navy, Air Force, Energy, Interior, Agri-
culture, and Justice, the Veterans Admin-
istration, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, the General Serv-
ices Administration, and the Defense Lo-
gistics Agency.
In calling for compliance with all appli-
cable requirements of the Clean Air Act
and the Federal Water Pollution Control
Act, Blum identified 77 "major" Federal
water pollution sources and 71 "major"
Federal air pollution sources currently
out of compliance with the law. She
further identified among those facilities a
list of the most serious non-compliers
which EPA believes require special prior-
ity action. There were 18 facilities on this
latter list, most of which are operated by
the military.
"EPA will use all means at its disposal,
including the possibility of judicial action,
to secure prompt compliance from Fed-
eral facilities," Blum stated. "I have
discussed this problem with the Office of
Management and Budget and they agree
that while past attempts to correct these
problems were not always effective, we
now must get on with the job and assure
prompt compliance.
"The Office of Management and
Budget is totally supportive in this effort,
and the Federal agencies involved should
request the necessary cleanup funds in
their Fiscal 1979 requests."
Peter Cook, Acting Director of EPA's
Office of Federal Activities, which is
NOVRMRFR-DKCRMBER 1977
managing the Federal facilities cleanup
program, said that he hopes the air quality
at non-complying Federal facilities can
be brought into compliance by 1979, the
deadline set by the Clean Air Act. "With
regard to water, we hope to see compli-
ance as soon as possible, because that
legal deadline has passed," Cook said.
"If a Federal agency does not take the
actions necessary for compliance consist-
ent with the law, the case may be referred
to the Justice Department, just as it
would be for any offending industrial or
municipal facility. We hope that we are
successful, in expediting solutions to these
pollution problems so that type of action
won't become necessary."
Jeffrey G. Miller, EPA's Deputy As-
sistant Administrator for Water Enforce-
ment, said, "The water enforcement
aspect of the Federal facilities cleanup
campaign is complicated by amend-
ments to the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act now pending in Congress.
The amendments would provide a vari-
ety of different compliance deadline ex-
tensions for facilities which missed the
1977 deadline. Many of the Federal
facilities now in question would not fit
into any of those categories for exemp-
tion, and thus such enforcement action
as an Administrative Order or civil ac-
tion is a possibility. This scenario could
entail possible civil penalties."
Richard D. Wilson, Deputy Assistant
Administrator for General Enforcement,
which includes air quality enforcement,
said, "if-a cleanup schedule for meeting
the 1979 delayed-compliance order dead-
line set in the Clean Air Act is not
formulated and acted on, we are man-
dated to go to court and obtain an
appropriate schedule by court decree.
The law also provides for civil penalties,
and it is possible such penalties could be
imposed."
Case examples of some of the most
serious non-compliers include:
• The Chanute Air Force Base, Rantoul,
111., where the heating plant requires par-
ticulate removal equipment. Also, equip-
ment to control emissions of aircraft fire-
fighting training activities is needed. Con-
trols for fire-fighting activities are to be
installed by December 1979. Installation
of the particulate removal equipment for
the heating plant is scheduled to be com-
pleted by June 1983.
• The Charleston Navy Yard, Charles-
ton, S.C., has coal-fired boilers which
are out of compliance. Construction of
pollution control equipment is underway;
however, anticipated date for the comple-
tion of this construction has slipped to
December 1979, because of a lack of
funds. Anticipated compliance date is
early 1980.
• The Energy Research and Develop-
ment Administration's Savannah River
Plant, S.C., has 16 coal-fired boilers vio-
lating standards for particulates. One elec-
tro-static precipitator has been installed.
The facility is planning to use cyclone
collectors through 1981; however, plans
are currently in the design stage. The
construction funds have not been budg-
eted. Anticipated date for attaining com-
pliance is December, 1978.
• Army Infantry Center, Fort Benning,
Ga. Sanitary waste from the facility is
out of compliance with water standards.
An upgrade of the secondary treatment
plant is in the preliminary design stage.
Anticipated date for compliance is 1980.
• Bureau of Reclamation's (Department
of Interior) Mine Draining Tunnel, Lead-
ville, Colo. Mine drainage must be treated
before being discharged into the Arkansas
River. Congress has authorized funds to
(1) rehabilitate 1,000 feet of the tunnel
which is near a highway and a hill that is
settling and (2) study the water quality
problem. It appears that it will take two
years and additional funds to correct the
pollution problem. •
PAGE 19.
-------
AROUND
THE
NATION
auto inspection
One of Region I's top priorities is to seek
passage of auto inspection and maintenance
programs in Connecticut and Massachusetts
in 1978. Both States failed to act in 1977 on
bills that would set up a program to ensure
that car pollution control systems are work-
ing properly. Region 1 has held a workshop
for Connecticut legislators on inspection
programs and has funded an information
program for the State. Administrator Costle
has warned Connecticut that failure to act
on auto inspection would compel EPA to
step in and arrange for establishment of
such a system. A training workshop on
auto inspection has been scheduled for Mas-
sachusetts legislators in early 1978.
open door
William Adams, Region I administrator, has
a new program he calls "Open Door Time."'
Every other Tuesday Adams sets aside time
to meet with individuals or representatives
of groups affected by EPA regulations. The
person-to-person sessions have been effec-
tive in improving communications between
the Agency and people like industrial and
labor leaders, environmental advocates, cit-
izen group leaders, and educators. Adams
sees "Open Door Time" as a chance for
him to learn about outside activities, as
well as a chance to discuss EPA policy
with the people whose lives are changed by
it.
PAGE 20
cleanup activities
Region 11 is treating and removing oil and
chemical wastes from the property of Pollu-
tion Abatement Services in Oswego, N.Y.
under an injunction from the U.S. District
Court. The company has been ordered to
pay the cost of removing pollutants from a
million-gallon lined storage lagoon and a
20,000-gallon lined pit. Wastes stored there
had been overflowing and leaching into
Wine Creek, which flows into Lake Ontario.
EPA sought the court injunction when the
company failed to correct conditions that
led to recurring pollution incidents in 1976.
anti-tampering fine
As a result of EPA's investigation of citizen
complaints, Otis Ford, Inc. of Quogue,
N. Y., has agreed to pay a $4,000 civil
penalty for disconnecting parts of the pollu-
tion control systems of two automobiles. A
similar case involving a N.J. dealership
recently resulted in a $2,000 fine.
quiet, please
The Nation's first Quiet Community Pro-
gram is underway in Allentown, Pa., to
demonstrate a comprehensive approach to
noise reduction. With advice from EPA,
the Allentown city government will enact
new local ordinances to control noise and
tighten enforcement of existing laws. Allen-
town was chosen to initiate the program
because the residents and city government
showed an interest in solving noise prob-
lems, and an EPA study showed that most
of the noise problems could be solved by
local efforts. The Quiet Community Pro-
gram will include nine other communities
during the next two years.
water primacy
The Commonwealth of Virginia, through its
Department of Health, is the first State in
Region III to assume primary enforcement
responsibility under the Federal Safe Drink-
ing Water Act. Virginia is the 12th State in
the Nation to achieve primacy. Pennsylva-
nia is the only State in Region III that is
not expected to assume this responsibility.
dumping decline
Region III has issued an interim ocean
dumping permit to the City of Philadelphia
that allows disposal of sewage sludge 35
miles off the Delaware-Maryland coast until
June 4, 1978. The amount of solids to be
dumped has been reduced from 140 million
pounds to 95 million pounds and requires a
complete end to ocean dumping by 1981. It
was issued by Region III Administrator
Jack J. Schramm because of Philadelphia's
lack of land-based alternatives to handle
the sludge.
fish warning
John C. White, Region IV Administrator,
issued a "don't eat" warning after channel
catfish from the Tennessee River in the
vicinity of the U.S. Army's Redstone Arse-
nal were found to contain more than 400
parts per million of DDT. The Food and
Drug Administration's DDT tolerance for
fish is 5 parts per million. Olin Chemical
Corp., which produced DDT in nearby
Huntsville, Ala., between 1947 and 1971,
buried stores of the chemical on 67 acres
leased from the Army after the chemical
was banned by EPA. Officials believe that
heavy rains eroded the area, washing the
chemical into tributaries of the Tennessee
River. EPA is meeting with FDA, the State
of Alabama, and the Army to find ways to
eliminate the DDT.
city fined
The City of Chicago has been assessed a
civil penalty of $56,000 for violations of
Federal unleaded gas regulations, by the
Region V Enforcement Division. The viola-
tions, cited by Regional Enforcement Direc-
tor James 0. McDonald, involve eight cars
used by the City Fire Department that are
equipped with catalytic converters and are
certified for use with unleaded gas. The
cars have been driven since July, 1977,
using leaded gas, which, while not affecting
engine performance, destroys the catalytic
converter and substantially increases the
pollutants in the car's exhaust. The penalty
can be mitigated by replacing the damaged
EPA JOURNAL
-------
catalytic conveners and switching back to
unleaded gas.
grants record
The Region V Construction Grants branch
has obligated close to a record $1.5 million
in Fiscal Year 1977 for construction of
sewage treatment plants, more than any
other region since the program began. Ac-
cording to Todd Gayer, regional Construc-
tion Grants Chief, the funds are set as
follows: Illinois, $331 million; Indiana, $257
million; Michigan, $276 million; Minnesota,
$79.3 million; Ohio, $433 million; and Wis-
consin, $107.2 million.
states run permits
Region V has delegated to all its States the
responsibility for administering the waste-
water discharge permit system. The transfer
was completed when EPA Administrator
Douglas M. Costle authorized Illinois to
issue permits on October 23.
poration's application for a three-year per-
mit to dump waste sodium-calcium sludge
into the Gulf of Mexico.
permit violations
Region VI has served administrative orders
against the Marathon Oil Co., Garyville,
La., and the City of Monticello, Ark,, for
violations of their wastewater discharge
permits
burning gas well
The Surveillance and Analysis Division of
Region VI reported no surface pollution
from a burning gas well of the Transco
Exploration Co. off the Gulf Coast. The
well, which caught fire October I, was
burning gas and condehsate. A relief well,
to bring the fire under control, was expected
to be completed by late November.
new office
An Office of Environmental Policy has been
formed in Region VI to define and adjust
policies and develop strategies for imple-
mentation. The new staff will assess envi-
ronmental and energy matters in conjunc-
tion with other Federal agencies and State
and local officials, design programs to in-
crease EPA effectiveness, coordinate plans
for environmental activities, and guide infor-
mation plans.
dump hearing
Attorneys for the Gulf Coast Fishermen's
Environmental Defense Fund and the Free-
port Shrimp Association have asked EPA
for an adjudicatory hearing on Ethyl Cor-
pesticide plan
Region VII held a public hearing in Lincoln,
Neb. Sept. 7 to review the reasons for
disapproving the State plan for the certifi-
cation of pesticide applicators. The basis of
the intended disapproval was that Nebraska
does not have adequate statutory or regula-
tory authority.
monitoring testimony
Ed Stigall, of Region VIFs Surveillance
and Analysis Division, testified before the
Subcommittee on Environment and the At-
mosphere; House Committee of Science
and Technology. The committee is investi-
gating the feasibility of a national environ-
mental monitoring network for toxic and
carcinogenic chemicals in the environment.
Representatives from Regions II and IX
also testified.
applicators certified
Region VIII held a two-day review seminar
and examination session for pesticide appli-
cators in Denver, Colo., in early Octo-
ber. It was the first Federal examination
session of its kind to be held in this country.
Other sessions to certify pesticide applica-
tors were slated forGrand Junction, Du-
rango, Alamosa, Sterling, and Pueblo later
in the month.
Region IX reports high public interest in
EPA's undersea study of steel drums filled
with radioactive wastes just outside the
Golden Gate Bridge. Over 50 press inquiries
on this subject came in during one day.
Dave Calkins, Director of Region IX's Of-
fice of External Relations, observed, "We
have to face the fact that actions which
may not rate high from the standpoint of
the Agency's overall national goals and
priorities are often the ones which attract
the greatest public attention. Radiation, like
cancer, is a trigger word in the public mind.
Public interest is aroused at the mere men-
tion of the word, particularly when some-
thing so dramatic as a dive under the sea,
into a burial ground for over 47,000 casks
filled with radioactive wastes, is involved."
effluent limits
A U.S. District Court judge has upheld
EPA's contention that three Washington
State pulp mills must comply with State-
issued waste discharge permits. The mills,
ITT Rayonier at Port Angeles, Scott Paper
Co. at Everett, and Georgia-Pacific at Bel-
lingham, are among the few major pulp
mills in Region X that failed to meet the
July deadline for providing the equivalent
of secondary treatment for their wastes.
survey continues
In EPA's continuing survey of Oregon pub-
lic drinking water supplies, 7 of 65 commu-
nities have showed excessive bacteriological
contamination. Operators of those systems
were told to issue "boil water" notices to
their customers. Region X assumed respon-
sibility for enforcement of the Safe Drinking
Water Act when Oregon cut the funding for
State inspectors who had been conducting
the survey.
Seattle air
Monitors carrying portable pulse pumps on
their backs sampled the air in downtown
Seattle during October to learn how much
carbon monoxide pedestrians are breathing.
An EPA contractor made the survey to
find out if carbon monoxide was more
widespread than indicated by the "hot
spots" noted by stationary monitoring
equipment. The results of the survey are
expected shortly.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGE 21
-------
FISH DETECT Toxics
EPA's regions and laboratories
throughout the country are work-
ing together to develop tests
measuring the response of fish, flies,
and other living organisms to various
degrees of toxicity. They believe the
tests can be quick, effective methods of
measuring and predicting chemical pol-
lution.
Chemical wastes are usually unknown
mixtures of a wide variety of com-
pounds. Often, multiple forms of the
same chemical are present in the same
effluent. In such a mixture they may
become highly reactive and when
dumped into water, may form new toxic
substances.
Dr. [Donald Mount, Director of EPA's
Environmental Research Lab in Duluth,
Minnesota, explains, "We have also
learned that these forms can change,
sometimes rather rapidly, and some-
times in unexpected ways into other
forms which are highly toxic. Some-
times this change may occur long after
the discharge has been made, at a far
distant location."
Another problem with waste mixtures
is that even after they have received
required treatment, many undetected
toxic substances may remain.
EPA is responsible for restoring and
maintaining the cleanliness of the Na-
tion's waterways under the amended
Federal Water Pollution Control Act of
1972. One of the greatest challenges
now facing the Agency is the develop-
ment of quick and reliable ways to
assess the biological effects of toxic
chemicals. Historically, waste samples
from industries or cities have been sub-
jected to lengthy, and costly, chemical
analyses. But these tests reveal little
about the effects of complex chemical
mixtures on living systems—the effects
we are most concerned about. The mag-
nitude and complexity of everyday in-
dustrial wastes underscore the need for
not only accurate measurements of bio-
logical effects, but also for a method of
predicting situations that could threaten
Kheryn Klubnikin worked for EPA as a
student assistant last summer.
by Kheryn Klubnikin
human health and seriously damage the
environment.
The use of bioassay tests as water
quality tools is relatively new. However,
it has long been known that many of
the lower organisms, such as bacteria,
certain algae, oysters, shrimp, and fish
are very sensitive to low concentrations
of toxic substances in water. In some
instances, small concentrations could
actually kill the organisms, while in
others they cause harm, such as delayed
reproduction in shrimp or coughing in
fish. Yet, many of these animals are
difficult to raise or keep alive in a
laboratory situation.
At the Western Fish Toxicology Lab-
oratory in Corvallis, Oregon, research-
ers have found that salmon, for instance,
will die in the presence of heavy metals
such as cadmium, in concentrations as
low as one part per billion. Moreover,
caddis flies, part of the salmon diet, are
even more sensitive to cadmium. This
trait can be extremely valuable to biolo-
gists as a "red flag" signaling the pres-
ence of toxic substances. Most impor-
tantly, an organism will provide an
accurate measure of the biological ef-
fects of mixtures of chemicals, some-
thing an analysis of a single water sam-
ple can't supply.
Among the most well-developed
bioassay equipment being used by EPA
is the Portable Bioassay Unit. EPA's
Region IV in Atlanta began monitoring
industrial effluents with the Portable
Bioassay Unit three-and-one-half years
ago. Essentially, the Unit is a laboratory
on wheels. A trailer is outfitted with
equipment that will pump the effluent
through tanks inside, automatically di-
lute it to different concentrations, and
monitor acidity, temperature, conductiv-
ity, and biological oxygen demand
(B.O.D.).
The animals being tested vary, de-
pending on whether the effluent is dis-
charged into fresh or salt water. Bluegill
sunfish and a small invertebrate called a
water flea are exposed to the effluent in
fresh water, while in salt water sheeps-
head minnows and possum shrimp are
used. Several different kinds of animals
are tested, as well as organisms repre-
senting different positions in the food
chain. According to Bill Peltier, aquatic
biologist with EPA's Athens, Ga., En-
vironmental Research Laboratory, the
animals are chosen because they re-
spond to toxic chemicals and are easily
raised in a laboratory.
There are three units of the same
type in Region IV. When EPA decides
Jim Anderson, of EPA '.v National
Enforcement Investigation Center in
Denver, at work in the mobile lab testing
wastes at South Charleston, W. Va.
PAGE 22
f-PA JOURNAL
-------
to check a company's effluent the units
are brought to the stream or water
body.
The Federal Water Pollution Control
Act directs EPA to require the owner
,or operator of any point source to in-
stall, use. and maintain equipment to
monitor its effluents. This may include
the use of biological monitoring meth-
ods. In addition, the Act says the
Agency "shall have a right to entry to,
upon, or through any premises in which
an effluent source is located. ..." and
"may at reasonable times have access
to and copy any records, inspect any
monitoring equipment or method . . .
and sample any effluent ..." As a mat-
ter of courtesy, and because of the
logistics involved, the firm is notified in
advance that EPA will enter the prem-
ises. The entire test procedure takes six
days. The organisms are allowed to get
used to the water to be tested for 48
hours. Then they are tested in effluent
flowing through the trailer for 96 hours.
The researchers look for what is referred
to as "acute toxicity"—the effluent con-
centrations at which 50 percent of the
organisms in a tank die within a rela-
tively short time period, usually 96
hours. This allows scientists to set a
"safe level" of discharge, where serious
biological damage presumably would not
occur. In several cases, a Portable
Bioassay Unit has been used to correct
acute toxicity in industrial wastes.
For example, a chemical company in
Tennessee had complied with the re-
quirements of its discharge permit. Yet
bioassays revealed extremely acute tox-
icity in its discharge. Organisms were
dying in very low effluent concentra-
tions. The bioassay team found sixty
organic chemicals in the water. The
discharge permit had only mentioned
four. Many of the chemicals were deg-
radation products which formed once
the mixture had hit the water. The
company was notified and EPA worked
with the company in making the neces-
sary corrections within the manufactur-
ing process. According to Peltier, the
quality of the effluent has improved
substantially and the company has in-
stalled its own biomonitoring system.
Chemical discharges can kill lower
organisms, but they may affect people
in other ways. Organic chemicals can
cause genetic mutations, or over a long
period can harm human health. For
instance, mercury can cause blindness
and damage nerves.
A number of bioassays to measure
these effects, and to determine the
chemical concentrations that cause
them, are being developed. A device
called a "four channel physiograph" is
being used by Bob Drummond and
Richard W. Carlson of EPA's Environ-
mental Research Lab in Duluth, Minn.
to see why fish "cough" in the presence
of toxic substances. Fish are sensitive
to changes in water quality. Their be-
havior as well as their physiology can
be affected by minute concentrations of
chemicals.
Drummond and Carlson have found
that low levels of toxics irritate the gills
of fathead minnows. The fish respond
by coughing. Coughing becomes more
frequent with an increase in chemical
stress. Electrodes are placed in the tank
and the coughs are picked up and re-
corded by the machine on a graph. This
particular test is promising because it
occurs in different kinds of fish such as
trout, salmon, and bluegill sunfish, and
can be used to predict long-term adverse
effects. It is also rapid, sensitive, and
relatively cheap.
A four-channel physiograph is also
being used in one of Region IV's Porta-
ble Bioassay Units. Researchers in the
Duluth Laboratory, and the Environ-
mental Research Laboratory in Gulf
Breeze, Fla., are also working on assay-
ing the effects of toxic chemicals on the
entire life cycle of sheepshead minnows
and possum shrimp. Certain portions of
each life cycle are very sensitive to the
presence of chemical substances. If
these stages can be identified, they will
be useful tools for predicting effects.
Another technique being applied at
EPA's National Enforcement Investiga-
tion Center in Denver uses avoidance
chambers. Fish are placed in holding
tanks and confronted with chambers
containing different chemical dilutions.
The fish avoid chemical concentrations
that are irritating or damaging. In this
way. the maximum chemical concentra-
tions that can be tolerated are measured.
Still another test looks for the effects of
organophosphates on the nervous sys-
tems of fish. The stream effluent is
pumped through a Portable Bioassay
Unit and after exposure the bioassay
team checks for a certain enzyme in the
brain. In this test the fish are suspended
in cages. Organophosphates inhibit this
enzyme, so if the stream is polluted, it
will be reflected in the fish's brain. This
is also a rapid, sensitive test.
Bioassays are emerging as invaluable
tools which will help EPA achieve the
goal of preserving the quality of the
Nation's waterways as set forth in the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
They evaluate the biological effects of
chemical wastes at relatively little cost.
"Properly employed by people with a
reasonable amount of experience, such
tests can tell us much about the charac-
teristics of effluents at a cost that is far
below what it costs to do detailed chem-
ical analysis." said Dr. Mount. "Be-
cause there is almost an infinite number
of mixtures and discharges which we
need to assess, it is clear that the
approach must be one of utilizing sim-
ple, short tests that can be applied to a
large number of situations." A bioassay.
however, is not a panacea. Chemical
tests must still be used along with the
organisms.
The impact of only a handful of chem-
icals is really well known. In regulating
and cleaning up the chemical "soup"
being formed every day, we will have
to use flies, fish, shrimp and a host of
other organisms, as "red-flags" of the
dangers of pollution.*
The reaction of these liny fish to effluents
curried into the tank by the tube in the
foreground will help indicate the level of
pollution in the waste discharge.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGII 23
-------
PEOPLE
Dr. Stephen J. Gage, Assistant
Administrator for Research and
Development, spoke at (he ded-
ication of EPA's new Si-million
Environmental Research
Aquatic Toxicological Labora-
tory at Gulf Breeze, Fla., in
October. Seated on the plat-
form, from left to right, are
Deputy Administrator Barbara
Blum; Dr. Steven Re/nek, sitt-
ing Deputy Assistant Adminis-
trator for Hnergy. Minerals and
Industry; Cong. Robert L. F.
(Bob) Sikes, and Dr. Dclbert S.
lt:ii Hi, Deputy Assistant Ad-
ministrator for the Office of
Health and Kcological Kffects.
"With these new laboratory fa-
cilities." Dr. Gage explained,
"the Gulf Breeze scientists will
be able to determine the effects
of toxic pollutants on aquatic
animals under conditions closely
resembling those in the real
world."
In her remarks, Blum presented
a visiting delegation of Soviet
scientists to the audience.
"Yourattendance here today is
truly symbolic of the interna-
tional importance of this labo-
ratory," she told them.
Staffed by approximately 80
employees, the new facility will
be administered by Dr. Thomas
W. Duke, Director, and Dr.
Tudor T. Davies, Deputy Direc-
tor. About 250 guests attended
the day-long dedication events,
and more than 100 community
residents toured the iab the fol-
lowing day during an open
house.
Kckardt C. Beck, EPA Region II
Administrator, has been selected
by President Carter for an addi-
tional role: Chairperson of the
Region 11 Federal Regional
Council.
Such Councils exist in each of
the ten Federal regions across
the country to coordinate activi-
ties among major agencies. They
are charged with improving inter-
governmental relations and as-
suring coordinated and consist-
ent response to problems which
cut across departmental lines in
the areas they serve.
The Federal Regional Council is
composed of the regional heads
of the Departments of Agricul-
ture; Commerce; Energy;
Health. Education, and Welfare;
Housing and Urban Develop-
ment; Interior; Labor, and Trans-
portation, as well as the Com-
munity Services Administration
and EPA.
"I intend to carry out the Presi-
dent's directive to open the Fed-
eral Government to local officials
and to the people," Beck said in
accepting the appointment. "We
will reach out in every way pos-
sible to learn from those outside
the Federal Government what
needs to be done."
Paul Elston has joined the Of-
fice of Planning and Manage-
ment as Acting Deputy Assist-
ant Administrator for Resources
Management and as Associate
to the Assistant Administrator,
William Dray ton.
"Paul understands the technical
dimension of our work, is thor-
oughly expert in managing
budgets, knows the substance
of most of our programs, has
some familiarity with health is-
sues, and has both municipal
and State backgrounds," Dray-
ton said.
Elston, who holds a Master's
in Business Administration from
Harvard, began his professional
career in New York's Bureau
of the Budget when John Lind-
say was mayor. From the Bu-
reau he moved to several major
line management jobs for the
City, including Assistant Com-
missioner of the Department of
Employment, where he shares
credit fora highly successful
rat control program.
Elston then moved to Albany
to work for Governor Hugh
Carey as First Deputy Commis-
sioner of New York State's De-
partment of Environmental
Conservation. After leaving the
Department, he served as Dep-
uty Director of New York
State's Division of the Budget.
:
Kathleen Callahan has been ap-
pointed Chief of the Planning
and Evaluation Branch in Re-
gion II. She began her EPA
career as an analyst in the Re-
gion's Enforcement Division
back in June 1971 immediately
after graduation with a B.A. in
Psychology from New York
City's Hunter College. Callahan
was previously program analyst
in Planning and Evaluation. As
Chief, she is responsible for
coordination and development
of the Region's work plans and
budgets and works closely with
Regional program offices and
Financial Management.
Gladys L. Harris, citizen activ-
ities officer for EPA's Office of
Solid Waste, has been installed
as the first woman president of
the Virginia Division of the
Izaak Walton League of Amer-
ica. The Virginia Division is the
League's second largest with
some 6,300 members. Harris
succeeds Hensel T. Smith, be-
24
EPA JOURNAL
-------
coming the fifth woman in the
United States to head a State
unit of the League. Harris, of
Front Royal and Alexandria,
Virginia, served as Executive
Director of the Northern Vir-
ginia Region of the Virginia Tu-
berculosis Association (now the
Virginia Lung Association) for
18 years, before joining EPA
seven years ago. She is a recip-
ient of the Association's highest
award, the Nora Spencer Ham-
ner award for "dedicated lead-
ership." She served as a mem-
ber of the Front Royal Town
Council from 1954-58. Ms. Har-
ris is chairman of the water
quality committee of the Na-
tional Izaak Walton League, a
post she has held for six years.
She has been editor of the Vir-
ginia Division's quarterly,
"Conservation Record." since
1966. She won both the Virginia
Wildlife Federation Award for
conservation communications
and the Garden Club of Virginia
conservation medal in 1971. She
is also a former District Direc-
tor of the Business and Profes-
sional Women's Club in Front
Royal.
Ronald L. Mustard has been
appointed Director of the Office
of Federal Activities in EPA
Region V. In his new job, Mus-
tard will direct, coordinate, and
control the review of Environ-
mental Impact Statements of
major federally funded actions
as welt as oversee abatement
and control of pollution from
Federal facilities, and review
licenses and permits from other
Federal agencies. He will also
represent EPA on various river
basin and Great Lakes commis-
sions.
Before his appointment, Mus-
tard served as chief of EPA's
Federal Facilities and Section
10/404 Permits Section, and as
acting chief of the Environmen-
tal Impact Statement Review
Section. Prior to joining EPA
in 1971, he was employed by
the Youngstown Sheet and
Tube Co. of East Chicago, In-
diana, in the field of environ-
mental management. Mustard
received a B.S. degree from
Nebraska State College at Pern
and a Master of Business
Administration from Indiana
University.
Appointed to assist Mustard as
Section Chiefs are Susan P.
Walker, who will serve as Chief
of the Environmental Impact
Statement Staff, and Carol R.
Fogelsong, who will serve as
Chief of the Federal Facilities
Staff.
Lsiah (Ike) Galling has been se-
lected to serve as Area Director
of Civil Rights for EPA's Re-
search Triangle Park facility in
North Carolina, with responsibil-
ities at other Agency installations
at Montgomery, Ala.;Corvallis.
Or.; St. Louis, Mo.; and Wen-
atchee. Wash. Prior to join ing
EPA, Catling was with the U.S.
Army Headquarters Training
and Doctrine Command, Fort
Monroe, Va., where he was in
charge of the civil rights pro-
gram, the Federal women's pro-
gram, military equal opportunity
and Spanish-speaking minority
employees program. Before that.
he held a similar position with
the Coast Guard. Catling began
his career as a professional foot-
ball player with the Boston Pa-
triots. Injury forced his retire-
ment, however, and he became a
high school teacher and coach.
Galling has a BA in health edu-
cation from North Carolina Cen-
tral University and an MA in
education and psychological
counseling from Hampton Insti-
tute. He has also done work to-
ward a doctorate in the field of
human relations.
Wyoming Governor Ed Her-
schler recently became the first
resident of his State to be li-
censed to supervise the spray-
ing of restricted-use pesticides.
The Governor passed a written
examination covering all as-
pects of pesticide use. Gover-
nor Herschler, who will now
be able to supervise pesticide
spraying on his ranching opera
tions in Lincoln County, said
that he wants to encourage
everyone in his State who uses
pesticides to contact the Wyo-
ming Department of Agriculture
to determine what type and
method of certification is best
suited for that individual's
needs. EPA is now in the proc-
ess of classify ing all pesticides
as either general or restricted
use, and Wyoming law requires
that any person who uses these
restricted-use pesticides be cer-
tified and licensed by the Wyo-
ming Department of Agricul-
ture.
Henry E. Warren has been ap-
pointed Commissioner of
Maine's Department of Envi-
ronmental Protection by that
State's Governor. James Lon-
gley. Warren succeeds William
Adams, EPA's newly appointed
Region 1 Administrator. Mr. •
Warren joined the Environmen-
tal Improvement Commission
(predecessor of the Department
of Environmental Protection) in
1970 as Director of Site Loca-
tion. He became Director of
the Department's Bureau of
Land Quality Control in 1972,
and was named its Deputy
Commissioner in December.
1976. He served as Acting
Commissioner of the Depart-
ment for two months prior to
his new appointment.
Ramon G. Lee has been ap-
pointed Chief of the Water Sup-
ply Branch of EPA's Region
III Office. Lee has been with
the Region III Water Supply
Program since 1973. Previous
to that, he worked as a profes-
sional engineer with the Cleve-
land. ()., consulting firm of Ha-
vens and Emerson, Ltd., the
U.S. Army, and the California
Division of Highways. A native
of Arlington, Virginia, Lee
holds a B.S. degree from North
Carolina State University and
an M.S. degree from the Uni-
versity of Florida, Gainesville.
Robert C. Magor has been ap-
pointed Director of EPA's newiy
created Office of Occupational
Health and Safety. Magor will be
reporting directly to the Assist-
ant Administrator for Planning
and Management, William Dray-
ton. The Office of Occupational
Health and Safety will be respon-
sible for managing the Agency's
policy of assuring healthful and
safe working conditions for EPA
employees. Magor comes to EPA
from the Polaroid Corp., Cam-
bridge, Mass., where he was
Corporate Manager of Industrial
Hygiene. Magor holds a
Ph.D. in Industrial Health from
the University of Michigan.
Steffen \V. Plehn has been se-
lected to serve as Deputy Assist-
ant Administrator for Solid
Waste by Thomas G. Jorling, As-
sistant Administrator for Water
and Hazardous Materials. Plehn
has been serving as Executive
Assistant to the Administrator, a
position he has held since joining
EPA in April 1975.
Prior to that appointment, he
spent three years with the
Council on Environmental Qual-
ity. His last position there was
Assistant Staff Director.
Plehn was with the US. Bureau
of the Budget from 1963 to 1968.
where he received the Director's
Professional Achievement
Award. He then worked for four
years at the State level with the
Department of Higher Education
of New Jersey.
Graduating cum laude from Har-
vard in 1959, Plehn went on to
earn a Master of Public Admin-
istration degree from that institu-
tion in 1961.
His appointment is subject to
Civil Service approval.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGE 25
-------
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC
JUSTICE
Happily, the fact is that a broader
view of the scope of problems that can
be truly termed environmental has been
rapidly evolving among the leading en-
vironmental organizations. There have
been in recent years many instances
where we have worked closely together
on legislation and implementation of
Federal programs:
I.We have received vital support in
our efforts to include in all Federal
environmental laws a provision to deal
with the problem of environmental
blackmail by business management.
2. A group of distinguished ecologists
joined the AFL-CIO in support of a
strong Occupational Safety and Health
Act in 1970.
3.The Urban Environmental Confer-
ence has provided strong assistance in
calling for tougher enforcement of the
OSHA Act and adequate funds to imple-
ment it.
4. Unions and environmentalists
worked closely together in the enact-
ment of the Safe Drinking Water Act of
1975.
5. The same informal coalition has
been the major force in achieving a
strong Toxic Substances Control Act.
In short, I am indicating that there is
more to unite than to divide us, although
you must recognize that the AFL-CIO
is an organization of federated unions
linked by structure and policy, but with
sometimes divergent problems. We do
not see eye to eye with the environmen-
tal community on nuclear power policy,
but we do agree and worked together
for strong legislation to control the rav-
ages of strip mining. We do not see eye
to eye with you on the issue of returna-
ble vs. non-returnable beverage con-
tainers, but we share a common belief
that national land-use legislation is a
crucial necessity.
Abatement of pollution is costly. It is
also beneficial. If this program is to
have the wholehearted support of not
only labor leaders but workers in the
plant, it is first necessary to assess the
costs, what the effects are on jobs, and
relate these costs, not merely in dollars
but in what happens to the lives and
welfare of people, to the beneficial
achievements of cleaning up the envi-
ronment.
We all know that to modify or rede-
sign industrial processes which have
been geared only to maximum unit pro-
duction with only slight consideration
for the safety and health of employees,
or for the effect of such operations on
the quality of the environment, is an
expensive process. Somebody has to
pay the bill. Mostly you and I pay for
it, either in the form of higher taxes to
fund abatement control programs, or as
consumers in the higher costs of goods
and services that we purchase.
And now we're told by management
that we will be victimized if we take
action to control such pollutants. Al-
ready faced by threats to our health, we
are now threatened with economic in-
jury.
As applied to the workplace environ-
ment, President Meany has expressed
labor's reaction to arguments that to
clean up environmental hazards is costly
to jobs: "No worker should pay for a
job with his life or his health."
I.W. Abel has been quoted in the
New York Times in a piece analyzing
the heavy union involvement in the fight
to force a proper noise standard, as
saying the fundamental issue is whether
workers should have to risk "loss of
one of their God-given senses as the
price they must pay for the job they
hold."
The Joint Economic Committee of
the Congress has held hearings to assess
the full range and magnitude of these
various economic impacts. It found that
pollution abatement expenditures,
amounting to $195 billion over the next
ten years, are not having and will not
have a significant impact upon the rate
of inflation. Actually the annual abate-
ment costs, which in 1973 were just less
than .5 percent of the Gross National
Product, will average over the ten-year
period about one percent of the total
GNP and contribute only .3 percent to
increased Consumer Price Index. Hardly
an over-commitment of the Nation's
wealth. In a survey conducted by the
Department of Commerce, only two
percent of firms interviewed announced
that the expected abatement costs would
reduce their investments in new plants
and facilities.
A Department of Labor study esti-
mated the cost of achieving a 90-decibel
noise level limit by 19 major industries
would cost $13.4 billion. And an 85-
decibel noise level limit would cost $31
billion. (EPA estimates the 85-decibel
cost at $12 billion over ten years.)
Whatever the cost, the 85-decibel
level would mean that workers with
long exposure to that level would suffer
hearing impairment at a frequency rate
slightly less than twice that of those not
so exposed. At the 90-decibel level that
rate is nearly doubled.
United .Rubber Workers President Pe-
ter Bommarito sums up worker attitudes
on this point with his comment that "the
notion that deafness is a fair exchange
for a job is no longer acceptable by the
vast majority of workers."
Obviously, worker interest in and ac-
ceptance of the fight for improvement
of the work environment is going to be
greater than in the fight to improve the
general community environment—par-
ticularly if he is made to fee] he alone
will pay the price for improving com-
munity environment—but even in the
first case the environmental blackmail
threat of the loss can take its toll.
We're told, "You can't eat clean air"
or we're told, "It's an either/or proposi-
tion—jobs or a healthy environment."
Well, that's an unacceptable choice.
We can have both and we must and
we're going to put an end to that kind
of environmental blackmail.
In conclusion, I emphasize these
points:
• The national goals of clean environ-
ment have been stated in laws enacted
and implemented by the U.S. They are
a permanent commitment of the Ameri-
can people through their elected repre-
sentatives.
• The Employment Act of 1946, even
though it has been ineffective, did set
the economic goal of this Nation as
being that of maximum and stable em-
ployment. The passage of the Hum-
phrey-Hawkins Full Employment and
Balanced Growth Act will put substance
into that commitment.
Both of these goals must be achieved.
In order to do so, organized labor's
concerns about widespread technologi-
cal side effects from the impact of
pollution control programs and environ-
mental improvement programs—both
job- and community-related—must be
recognized and dealt with.
• To move toward a clean environment
and full employment, there will inevita-
bly be some trade-offs. If the labor
movement and the environmental com-
munity are to travel the road together,
this must be recognized. Extremism by
either element is only self-defeating.
• There must be mutual recognition
that the environment is also people and
the circumstances under which they live
and work. Equally vital is the recogni-
tion that this magnificent but fragile
planet must from now on be treated
with increasing respect and care. •
PAGE 26
EPA JOURNAL
-------
ENVIRONMENTAL ALMANAC
A GLIMPSE OF THE NATURAL WORLD WE HELP PROTECT
NOVEM BKR-DKCHM BKR
Man and the Coyote
A small doe burst suddenly from the
fog and raced in sheer terror with
two coyotes on her heels across a sloping
rock wall in the western Colorado moun-
tains.
A watching sheep herder reported
that one coyote caught the deer by a
hind leg and the other then sank his
teeth into her throat.
The doe struggled desperately and
then fell backward into space with the
coyotes still clinging to her in a death
grip.
The shepherd counted "one hundred
and one, one hundred and two, one
hundred and three." At the count of
one hundred and thirty, he related, a
dull thud arose from the depths followed
ty the rattle of rolling rocks and then
silence.
This incident, illustrating the coyotes"
extraordinary tenacity, if not their usual
cunning, was described by Will C. Mi-
nor, in "More Foot Prints in the Trail,"
an account of his experiences as a shep-
herd in western Colorado.
Yet watching young coyotes through
binoculars on a wind-swept western
plain as they romp and chase each other
through a fresh December snow, you
could believe that they are as lovable as
cocker spaniels.
Actually they are, of course, extraor-
dinarily cunning, savage and deter-
mined animals.
They have been described as the most
successful of all predators. Indian leg-
end forecasts that they will be the last
animals on Earth.
While coyotes rarely hunt deer, their
attacks on sheep and other livestock
have made them hated by many sheep
men and ranchers. However, the coyote
is warmly defended by animal lovers
who contend that it plays a useful role
in its environment.
Guns, traps and poisons have long
been used to exterminate coyotes and
one result is that only the smartest coy-
otes have survived.
Because the poisons used often killed
other wildlife and sometimes injured
humans a Presidential Executive Order
was issued in 1972 banning the use of
these poisons on Federal lands except
in certain emergency situations. After
the order was issued EPA cancelled
Federal registration for various poisons
used to control the coyote.
As a result, ranchers and farmers put
new emphasis on shooting and trapping
coyotes that prey on their stock, partic-
ularly during the lambing season.
To aid ranchers in certain areas where
major losses to coyotes have been re-
ported, EPA has approved registration
of a spring-loaded toxic device called
the M-44. Its use is governed by Federal
and State agencies.
The M^t4 has been described by its
advocates as humane because death
occurs almost instantly when a tug from
a coyote at the scented bait triggers a
puff of cyanide into the animal's mouth.
EPA has also granted the Department
of the Interior permission to experiment
with use of toxic collars. These plastic
devices loaded with 1080 (sodium mon-
ofluoroacetate) are placed around the
necks of sheep near where coyotes have
been killing livestock. The collar is de-
signed to release a lethal dose of this
poison into a coyote's mouth if the coy-
ote, as it often does, attacks the sheep's
throat.
A new 28-minute color film produced
by EPA's Region VII Office in Kansas
City gives a report on the coyote prob-
lem and how it is being dealt with.
Titled "A Matter of Understanding."
the movie can be borrowed from the
EPA Office at 1735 Baltimore Ave., Kan-
sas City. Mo. 64108. The film is also
available for purchase for $156.50 from
tlu- National Audiovisual ("enter (GSA),
Washington. D.C. 20409.
The movie points out that EPA recog-
nizes that some coyotes kill and injure
sheep and other livestock. However, the
film emphasises that "the Agency does
not condone the wholesale extermina-
tion of all coyotes, believing that envi-
ronmental protection and prevention of
livestock losses can be achieved by se-
lective removal of those predators that
have acquired a taste for livestock.
The movie concludes that while man
will try to regulate those things he be-
lieves are harmful to his best interests.
"a better understanding of other living
things will determine how responsibly
we make adjustments in the environ-
ment and govern the Earth we share
with the coyote and other creatures."-
C.D.P.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1977
PAGI-; 27
-------
UPDATE
A listing of recent Agency publi-
cations, and other items of use to
people interested in the environ-
ment.
General Publications
Single copies available from
Printing Management Office
(PM-215), US EPA, Washington,
D.C. 20460. (202) 755-0890.
Mechanics, A New Law Affects
You (December, 1977). This 8-
pane] pamphlet for mechanics
and garage owners explains a
1977 Amendment to the Clean
Air Act that makes it illegal for
anyone to tamper with the anti-
pollution devices on a car. It
outlines what actions constitute
tampering and lists the penalties.
Do You Own A Car? (December,
1977). An 8-panel pamphlet for
car owners that explains the im-
plications of new legislation that
prohibits tampering with pollu-
tion controls on automobiles.
Tuning Down Auto Air Pollution
(December, 1977). A 16-page
booklet describing the impor-
tance of auto inspection and
maintenance programs in the
fight against air pollution. It lists
the major pollutants attributed
to automobile exhaust and their
health effects.
Women and the Environment
(November, 1977). This leaflet
outlines the importance of
women in the protection of the
environment through their roles
as homemakers, consumers,
and as environmental activists
and professionals.
The President's Environmental
Youth Awards (December, 1977).
A 16-page pamphlet that de-
scribes and explains the Presi-
dent's program, which encour-
ages students to plan and carry
PAGE 28
.out environmentally-oriented
projects with the help of teach-
ers and local adult sponsors. It
contains instructions, examples,
and the necessary forms.
Federal Register Notices
Copies of Federal Register no-
tices are available at a cost of
20 cents per page. Write Office
of the Federal Register, National
Archives and Records Service,
Washington, D.C. 20408.
Motor Vehicle Engines. EPA
adopts stringent emission stand-
ards for heavy duty gasoline-
fueled and diesel engines for
the 1979 and later model years;
effective 10-18-77. pp. 45131-174
in the Sept. 8th issue.
Pesticides. EPA issues notice of
intent to suspend and to condi-
tionally suspend registrations of
products containing dibromo-
chloropropane (DBCP). pp.
48915-48923. Sept. 26 issue.
Toxic and Hazardous Sub-
stances. EPA, CPSC, HEW/FDA,
Labor/OSHA enter into inter-
agency agreement for coopera-
tion, pp. 54855, 54856, 54879,
54886. Oct. 11 issue.
Regulations Under
Consideration
The following rules are being
developed by EPA. The Agency
encourages public comment and
EPA contacts and proposed
issuing date are listed so that
interested persons can make their
views known. These rules will be
issued in January, 1978:
Pesticide Registration Guide-
lines, to detail the information
needed about hazard evaluation
to humans and domestic animals
write or phone Bill Preston
(WH-568), EPA, Washington, D.C.
20460. (202)557-7351.
Protective Action Guides for
Nuclear Incidents, for developing
emergency plans for accidents at
nuclear facilities and the transpor-
tation of nuclear materials, con-
tact Jim Hardin (AW-460), EPA,
Washington, D.C. 20460. (202)
755-2890.
Identification and Listing of
Hazardous Waste Criteria, for the
Resource Conservation and Re-
covery Act, contact Alan Corson
(AW-465), EPA, Washington, D.C.
20460. (202)755-9187.
Standards for Owners and
Operators of Hazardous Waste
Treatment Storage and Disposal
Facilities that will apply to record-
keeping, monitoring and report-
ing, compliance with operating
practices, location and design,
contingency plans, and facility
maintenance, contact William
Sanjour (WH-465), EPA, Washing-
ton, D.C. 20460. (202) 755-9200.
Employee Contest
EPA employees have until January
31 to submit original poetry (up
to 250 words), photographs (8" x
10" prints), or artwork (oil, water-
color, pastel, charcoal, or acrylic)
on the theme "Nature" for the
Recreation Association art contest.
Entries should be addressed to
Recreation Association Office,
EPA, Rm. 3132, Washington, D.C.
20460. Plaques and savings bonds
will be awarded to the winners.
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news loriefs
EPA TO STUDY ASBESTOS HAZARD
EPA has announced it will begin a study to determine the danger
of asbestos emissions from the use of crushed stone made from
serpentinite rock. The crushed stone may release asbestos into
the air, and exposure to airborne asbestos fibers has been
directly linked to the development of cancers. The study will
decide whether a Federal standard is required to protect public
health, and if so, will gather data to develop the standard.
The study should be completed and the regulatory decision made
by mid-1978.
CHEMICAL TRACES FOUND
Minute quantities of over 200 chemicals were found in the waters
of several major U.S. industrialized river basins and the Great
Lakes during monitoring studies conducted for EPA by the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The report, "Monitoring
To Detect Previously Unrecognized Pollutants in Surface Water,"
(PB 273-349,-350} is available from the National Technical
Information Service, Springfield, Va. 22151.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST VELSICOL
The Justice Department has filed a civil complaint against
Velsicol Chemical Corporation of Houston, Tex., according to
EPA's Dallas regional office. Velsicol is charged with failure
to obey an EPA administrative order of March 1, 1977, that called
for the company to eliminate contaminated stormwater runoff from
its Bayport, Tex., plant. Soil and runoff samples from the site
showed the presence of the insecticides leptophos and EPN.
PACK 29
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WASHINGTON. D.C. 20460
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MILLIONS SEE DRINKING V&TER FILM
More than six million people have
now seen a new half-hour tele-
vision program, "Is Your Drinking
Water Safe?" produced by Connecticut Pub-
lic Television under a grant from EPA.
The film has been widely used on both
educational stations and commercial televi-
sion stations. By June the film will be
shown on 220 more commercial and cable
television stations to an audience estimated
at nine million people.
The film, made possible by a $75,000
grant for production from EPA's Office of
Water Supply, will also be widely shown to
schools, civic, and community groups. This
movie is available on loan without charge
and is also available for purchase.
Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water
Act of 1974 because during recent decades
as society became more industrialized, and
population increased, our sources of water
supply became increasingly threatened by
hundreds of new chemicals and pollutants.
Now the more than 40,000 community
drinking water systems and 200.(KX) other
public water systems in America must rou-
tinely sample their product to make sure
that EPA's standards are being met. Also.
in what EPA Deputy Administrator Barbara
Blum has termed "the most novel feature
of the new program," customers will be
notified by their public water system if
standards or monitoring requirements are
not being met.
As this notification clause is enforced.
the public will have the opportunity to
participate in the improvement of the qual-
ity of their drinking water.
It is because of the importance of the
public's role in achieving safe standards for
drinking water that the Office of Water
Supply gave a grant to public television to
produce a documentary on the subject.
Under this grant. Connecticut Public Tele-
vision produced the half-hour special, "Is
Your Drinking Water Safe?" first broadcast
last June.
The success of the Connecticut project
prompted the Agency to award two more
grants to public television. The Office of
Public Affairs in Kansas City has given a
grant to Kansas City Public Television to
produce a half-hour program on the prob-
lems of providing safe drinking water in
rural communities. The program will be
broadcast later this year. Washington's Of-
fice of Public Awareness has awarded a
grant to the Southern educational television
network to produce an hour-long special on
chemicals in the environment. This show is
scheduled to be aired in late 1978.
Bert Shapiro, a veteran of many years of
documentary television programming, pro-
duced, wrote and directed the new drinking
water film for Connecticut Public Televi-
sion. He had the following comments about
the documentary:
"We first reveal the nature of water
treatment in cities like Philadelphia, Cincin-
nati, St. Louis, New Orleans and others
which have access only to heavily polluted
surface water. These communities have so-
The Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant on
the Maryland-District of Columbia
boundary which treats drinking water for
the Nation's Capital.
called 'complete' treatment plants which
add coagulants, settle, sand filter and chlo-
rinate their water. . . .
"The program next deals with supply
systems in cities like Boston, New York,
Los Angeles, Bridgeport, that use fresh
mountain water. . . . Water treatment in
these cities is much simpler. . . . The prin-
cipal tool of treatment is chlorine. Most of
the year the systems that use fresh moun-
tain water but which do not have filtration
plants can meet uniform, national standards.
"We next deal with underground systems
starting with the largest underground water
supply system in the country in San Anto-
nio. Tex. Again, treatment of water is
simply chlorination. The problem with un-
derground water is that when polluted it
will remain so for long periods of time. . . .
The land feeding the underground supply,
therefore, needs to be carefully supervised
to prevent long-term pollution. But a large
portion of the land above the source is up
for development. The issue here is the
protection of a pure sole source vs. allowing
developers to use the land as they see fit
with a minimum of controls and regulations.
"The more typical underground system
is the small well system in towns like San
Marcos. Calif. Usually these small systems
are one-man, part-time operations. . . . The
difficulty is that there are thousands of
small well systems in each State and a
limited number of State health officials to
do the supervising, as well as to enforce
uniform, national standards."
"Is Your Drinking Water Safe?" is avail-
able on free loan for group showings from
Modern Talking Picture Service, 2323 New
Hyde Park Road. New Hyde Park, New
York 11040. Please order by Film Digest
#31486 and state your first, second, and
third choices of booking dates.
The film can be purchased from Capital
Film Lab NY Inc., 343 West 54th Street,
New York, N.Y. 10019 for $71.45."
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