Page 12 RAIN January 1981 rl,()XJ(: ,,Jisr1i1~s SYNI) I\() 1'11~ by James McClements If we do one thing in the next decade we should redefine the word "bury." It was great for tombs and treasures, but it doesn't work for chemicals. If they don't seep out into a river they seep down and find their way into those huge bodies of underground water called aquifers. Either way we usually end up drinking them. About half the people in the United States drink water from underground. And whether from chemical spills, unprocessed effluent, or industrial dumps, aquifers across the country are being contaminated. Hundreds of people in Hardeman County, Tennessee, drank badly contaminated water for years. Aquifers in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan are already known to be poisoned, and this is just the beginning. The damage we are doing to that underground reserve of water is irreversible because it can never purify itself as surface water can. That's old water down there-often undisturbed for thousands of years-migrating with slow deliberateness at a geologic pace. This is the earth to which we've been just a fast and furious bhp. But we' re leaving our mark. At speeds not faster than~ontinental drift the regulatory agencies are trying to reverse this trend. It is a Herculean task. They must counter corporate power that is almost glacial in its force. Having fought their first decade toward tighter air and water pollution control, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has only recently realized the hidden danger of chemical mismanagement. Only recently have "buried" stocks of chemicals begun to leach far enough out of containment to endanger local ecosystems. And only re- -cently has long-term exposure to certain chemical substances begun to take its toll. The EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) share responsibility for protecting us against the careless use and disposal of hazardous chemicals, OSHA tending to the workplace and the EPA to the general environment. Both are underfunded organizations. Their roles are often executive, like C<tbinet branches subject to the whims of the Office of Management and Budget, and sometimes legislative, forcing them to politick in the interest of self-preservation. They are further caught between powerful corporate interests and the relatively weak environmental lobby. The industrial lobby not only gets a sympathetic ear in Congress where the EPA's authority originates, but once the provisions of a law are passed on to the regulatory agencies for implementation, big business has another chance to shape the codes. Because legislative guidelines are not specific enough to be enforced, EPA and OSHA staffers must spell out specifications that are loophole-free and will stand the inevitable court test. An unfavorable ruling could set the regulators back years, so regulators consult industry and accommodate them when necessary since wealthy corporate interests have such vast resources for waging long court battles to kill or delay new regulations. For the agencies, care and prudence are required. Care and prudence translates into either time or money. And since the regulatory agencies don't get much money, it takes time. It took OSHA three years to draw up its vinyl chloride standard, and the General Accounting Office predicts that at present rates OSHA will take one hundred years to set guidelines for all substances currently known. Last year_Bob Eckardt, of a House Commerce subcommittee, condemned the EPA for its slowness in implementing the Resource Cons'ervation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which dictates industry responsibility for tracking and disposing bf wastes. It will begin to go into effect at the end of 1980, four years after it was passed. • Because research funds are also limited, the EPA has to rely on inflated industry figures for such major details as cost/benefit analyses and earliest possible compliance projections. An independent study estimated industry costs for compliance with RCRA at $750 million, or one-third of a per cent of total sales, while industry figures went as high as $25 billion. When the regulators have no such studies available industry gets another chance to write its own ticket. And in the end, if there happens to be enough funding for the agencies to write an equitable yet challenging set of regulations, there is often not enough money to enforce them. Under RCRA the EPA, recognizing its enforcement limitations, exempted small producers of waste which account for a staggering 60% of the industry. Over the next few years an anti-regulatory, pro-business climate will probably prevail. Environmental regulation and worker safety have become scapegoats for inflation and we may see the EPA even more strapped for funds and less autonomous. Senator Schweiker's so-called OSHA Improvements Act, intended to gut OSHA, had a great deal of support even in the last session of Congress. It virtually breaks OSHA's already tentative hold by eliminating spot checks, and exempting huge segments of the industry from OSHA jurisdiction. At present rates OSHA will take 100 years to set guidelines for alI substances currently known. Love Canal has done more to focus attention on toxic waste in this country than any other incident. Hooker Chemical has gained a reputation that is equalled only by Japan's Chisso corporation, responsible for the mercury contamination at Minamata. But let's not forget Velsicol, whose chemical wastes the people of Hardeman County drank with their well water and who was indicted last April by a grand jury in Michigan for allegedly withholding information about their renowned PBB-contaminated animal feed. Then there's Dow, and Allied, and General Electric, on down to the little guys like TECO of Texas, poisoning its workers and neighbors, and I(ol
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