Some coalitions, however, have maµaged to bridge the gap. Environmentalists For Full Employment held a conference in Pittsburgh recently to bring anti-nuclear unioh groups together with environmentalists to push for safe energy. Another coalition, the Urban Environment Conference, actively fought for Superfund legislation, and they are now battling the Schweiker bill so that OSHA guidelines do not become voluntary. Within coalitions like these, distrust can be dissipated and each faction can work toward solutions that do not sacrifice the other's best interests. Divisiveness and ignorance can be industry's most valuable asset, but thes~ organizations break the pattern. An independent study estimated industry costs 'for compliance with RCRA at $75Q million, or one-third of a percent of total sales, while industry figures went as high as $25 bi//ion. Nationally, these groups e-an have a powerful ~Hect on legislation. By lobbying to protect OSHA, unions and coalitions can broaden their constituencies to non-union workers, and by facilitat- - ing court suits and strengthening environmental legislation they can serve tl\e nation and the ecosystem. And beca~se RCRA exempts small producers of hazardous waste, 'union locals and community coalitions, by exerting pressure on these companies, may January 1981 -RAIN Page 15 be able to have some control over that unregulated 60 percent. Court battles are expensive and often fruitless for the individual victim; lobbying would be out of the question. But a contaminated aquifer, even in a rural area, can affect thousands of people. Even without the strong liability provisions of the original Senate Superfund, however, it is still possible to organize the victims and accomplish with class action suits and the strength of numbers what might have been possible with justice alone. first it is essential to educate people to chemical hazards, then teach them how to deal effectively with issues that affect a community. If a plant is poisoning its neighbors, then these people need to organize. If the EPA,.under RCRA, cannot take care of°an abandoned dump'(and it cannot) then those whose waters are threatened or fouled will have to joirt together and do what is necessary. These are the people who have the most to lose by giving up and the most to gain by fighting. That goes for the rest of us, the potential victims, too. ·~ .... Industry won't do it for us. Corporations will curb their recklessness only when it's good for profits. As industry begins to take responsibihty for polluting, it will do only as much as it is forced to by the courts, the regulators, and the public relations people. If corporations are not malevolent, they are so amoral that such distinctions blur; the corporate ethic fosters a tyranny of indifference. It is all we know and all we need to know. Picture Hooker Chemical, penitent and obsequious at its dump site in Montagu~, Michigan, ,pumping water day and night out of so-called purge wells, cleaning it, then pumping it back in an artful, Sisyphean attempt to do what no human or god has ever done before: purify a ruined aquifer. Keep up_the good work, Hooker.DD ACCESS---
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