Page 14 RAIN January 1981 Toxic Wastes cont. (35 million metric tons a year) and they appeal to the federal government to strengthen provisions that override state and local decisions, local opposition (in regard to dump siting, at least) is growing strong enough that industry's fight may soon be uphill. The voters of Washington State decided overwhelmingly in November to end their role as trash bin for the nation's nuclear waste. Though this initiative may not stand the test of law, legislators may see popular sentiment strong enough to warrant a few changes in those laws. Popular sentiment in a democracy is, after all, intended to filter up. And popular sentiment will have a similar effect on industry. If members of a community won't accept a leaky chemical dump, they might be talked into a conscientiously sited, constructed and monitored containment area. If they object to dirty rivers, they still might accept a few responsible, clean industries. Most large corporations now employ environmentalists to whom they give varying degrees of autonomy and influence. Concern about their corporate image is usually the motivating force, but the 3M Company's 3P program (pollution prevention pays) has aimed at changes in the manufacturing process itself and has come up with simple conservation measures that have saved money while reducing wastes. Many corporations have also found that stemming pollution at its source is far cheaper than the cost of cleaning up. Allied Chemical could have spent only $250 thousand to keep Kepone out of the James River, a misjudgment that cost them several million. And Velsicol, one of misfortune 500's worst, is taking great pains to chang~ bad habits. It has hired an ex-EPA official, John M. Rademacher, to head up Environmental Health and Regulatory Affairs and has given him considerable clout. It's still not enough. Corporations will only police themselves so far and court damage awards against them are usually no more than a slap on the hand. A company like Hooker <?r Velsicol probably suffers worse in the stock market. Settlements against Allied were reduced from $13.2 million to $5.2 million (after they gave $8 million to an environmental group), but the costs of cleaning up the James, were anyone to undertake that task, would run into the hundreds of millions. General Electric paid New York State $3 million for its contamination of the Hudson with PCB's, but according to Business Week that cleanup would have cost $200 million. It is the courts, however, that are in a perfect position to deter industry with the threat of large injury settlements in favor of the victims. Deterrence is critical. Regulatory agencies are prescriptive-writing the rules and chasing industry from loophole to loophole-but the courts, with a few legislative guidelines on compensible injury and liability, could levy significant penalties and with a broad sweep discourage pollution industry-wide. Senate Bill 1480, the "Superfund," set up just such a system to streamline compensation procedures. The bill proposed a $4.1 billion industry fund for environmental clean-up and drastically changed laws concerning corporate liability. But due to industry pressure the bill was supplanted by a version which reduced the fund and weakened the liability sections. To even suggest then that indu~try be subject to criminal penalties for breaking pollution laws seems tintenably extreme given the fact that corporations hardly ever bear the burden of their own mistakes. Chemical spills and abandoned dumps are shrugged off by industry as"externalities"-those costs which are to be taken on by the community. And in Michael Brown's Laying Waste (reviewed in this issue) we catch a glimpse of how deeply this notion is entrenched when Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) president Robert A. Roland, in reference to the Superfund's proposed industry financed cleanup, makes the ludicrous complaint that the bill unfairly singles out the chemical and related industries to bear a disproportionate burden of the cleanup costs. In doing so it fails to adequately reflect society's responsibility for resolving a problem which everyone has helped to create and for whose solution everyone should help to pay. If these "externalities"-poisoned aquifers, rivers, air and people-were all figured into corporate overhead one would see why corporations assign these costs to the public. It is because these costs are so great that even the multinationals would be hard pressed to pay. They can't afford to take care of the mess they leave. No one can. But only industry is in a position to curtail potential pollution while it's still managable. Then they have the nerve to call environmental regulation ''inflationary.'' Clearly it is pollution that is inflationary. Mark Green in Environmental Action notes that although "sulphur oxide and particle emission standards . .. may cost $9.5 billion this year . . . the standards will also save an estimated $16.1 billion just in health outlays." One should also consider that the shellfish industry down the James River from Allied was virtually destroyed by Kepone contamination. It seems ironic, then, that the issue wielded most successfully by industry has been loss of jobs. A 1976 study by the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers union (OCAW) concluded that environmental regulation had little or no effect on plant closings in those industries. Even the CMA, boasting industry anti-pollution efforts in a current public relations campaign, states that there are 10,000 workers industry-wide "whose sole job is to operate, maintain, and monitor pollution control equipment." Claims that regulation makes it too difficult for "marginal" operations to survive during recession, although occasionally true, are used extensively by industry to blackmail government into easing regulatory pressure and to influence workers to back industry needs. To workers and society, industry contends that economic growth and env:ironmental concern are at odds, a·nd that conservationists are out to protect the environment at the cost of jobs and our American way of life. And though this is sometimes true, there are plenty of people in industry who protect; the almighty profit margin at the expense of the environment and worker safety. A study by the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union concluded that environmental regulation had little or no effect on plant closings in those industries. There needs to be a middle ground, but threats of plants closing have pitted workers against environmentalists on such an emotional level that dialogue is prevented and middle ground is hard to come by. By keeping these two forces at odds, industry has forestalled the discovery by each group that they have a lot in common. If a factory is polluting, chances are the worker's family bears the worst of it. If a company mishandles a hazardous substance it is the worker who is the first casualty, and workers are often kept in the dark about the substances they work with. Not only do companies fail to inform workers of hazards, but often they will deny workers access to information in the name of trade" secrecy. Anthony Mazzocchi of OCAW is pushing industry to take measures to educate workers to the risks of handling toxic substances so workers can make for themselves the life and death decisions that are often made for them. But though most workers and their unions recognize the value of regulators such as OSHA, and are actively opposed to such measures as the Schweiker bill, there is a point for many at which the health of the industry and short-term job security are of more immediate concern than the often long-term, invisible hazards of exposure to toxic chemicals. Many workers feel environmentalists are insensitive to this.
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