Word: epa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...arsenic-emissions standard proposed by EPA and slated for public discussion primarily affects the Tacoma smelter, which is the only U.S. plant using arsenic-rich copper ore imported from the Philippines. The proposed standard requires the smelter to install the best available technology to lower its overall arsenic emissions to 189 tons per year from the 310 tons that annually belch from its 565-ft. smokestack and seep from other parts of the plant. Asarco is already spending $4.4 million to install hoods that should cut back emissions to precisely those levels. Despite these safeguards, Ernesta Barnes, EPA...
...With 575 workers, the 80-acre smelter, operated by Asarco since 1905, pumps some $35 million annually into the Tacoma, Wash., area economy. Unfortunately, the smelter pumps out arsenic, a deadly cancer-causing poison that is released directly into the atmosphere as a byproduct of copper refining. Last week EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus announced details of a new federal air-quality standard for arsenic emissions. However, he left open a tough choice between a reduced but still clear risk of cancer for Tacoma residents and the loss of hundreds of jobs if the plant shuts down. Ruckelshaus' solution...
Ruckelshaus called on Tacoma to hold public meetings on the issue next month, with EPA officials participating. Said he: "People need to hear more of what the administrator of this agency hears from the scientists: mainly, that we have a lot of gaps in our knowledge. Most people think the facts are clear, but it is often true that there is enormous dispute over what the facts are. And we just can't sit there and let nature take its course...
...action represents more open-mindedness on the part of the EPA, which in the past has generally invited public discussion only after policy decisions have been made. Nonetheless, some environmentalists viewed the new approach as the kind of morbid cost-benefit analysis they have long opposed. Western Washington University Professor Ruth Weiner said that asking the community to determine what is best is "economic blackmail. People will vote for jobs and cancer." Warned Richard Ayres, head of the National Clean Air Coalition: "You're balancing money and lives, and they just don't balance...
...that the briefing book imbroglio has been thrust into national consciousness, the Reagan Administration can regain its full credibility only by ensuring that investigations go forward. If there is housecleaning to be done, the President has already demonstrated-most recently in the EPA scandal-that he can do it, however reluctantly and unapologetically. He stands by his characterization of the ruckus as "much ado about nothing. " But Reagan has already said what Richard Nixon could never quite bring himself to say about Watergate. Promised Reagan: "If, when the investigation is over and the truth is known, it is necessary...