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...toxic industrial chemicals on a 3.5-acre site along the Pine River near St. Louis, Mich. A county golf course was developed beside the dump. By the mid-'60s, fish in the river contained high levels of such known or suspected carcinogens as PBB, PCB and DDT. Working with EPA, the company in 1982 agreed to spend $38.5 million to clean up the area. At the golf course, all soil was removed to a depth of 3 ft. below any signs of contamination. That involved hauling 68,204 cu. yds. of dirt away. Fully l.25 million gal. of contaminated groundwater...
...sites chosen by the EPA for quick action should probably not have been on the top-priority list in the first place. In Greenville, Miss., Walcott Chemical Co. had stored 226 drums of such chemicals as tetrasodium pyrophosphate and formic acid in a warehouse that the state of Mississippi had seized for failure to pay taxes. The state considered the chemicals a fire hazard (rather than a contamination threat) and asked EPA to put the site near the top of its list. The agency merely had the drums hauled off to an approved landfill in Emelle, Ala. Problem solved. Similarly...
...California environmental groups recently surveyed seven landfills in that state. Though the EPA was monitoring them for leaks, the groups reported, "every one of the sites examined is leaking, without exception; and every one is out of compliance with currently applicable regulations." Wastes placed in them from other failed sites may soon have to be picked up and moved once again. The result is a bleak game of chemical leapfrog...
...spreading realization that there is no easy way simply to bury the toxic-waste problem has fed the ever present NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome. "Something's got to give," protests Christopher Daggett, EPA administrator for New York and New Jersey. "Either we aren't going to have cleanups, or someone's going to bite the bullet and start accepting wastes. But Lord knows, no one wants to be first." Daggett and his boss, EPA Director Thomas, contend that there is no ready technology that can promptly solve the disposal problem. "We can't wait around until we have...
Critics accuse EPA of being too cautious in failing to rely more heavily on such destruction technologies as high-temperature incineration and in failing to back innovative approaches for detoxifying chemical wastes (see box). EPA has projects under way in these fields, but the pace is slow, the funding inadequate, and there is little sense of urgency. Barbara Vecchiarelli, a citizens'-group leader in Marlboro Township, N.J., admires Daggett's dedication to his work but, nonetheless, complains about EPA in general: "They don't have the technology to handle chemical pollution. The problem is bigger than they are, and they...