Word: toxication
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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AFTER THE Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last fall rated a toxic waste dump in Woburn, Mass. the fourth worst such site in the country, everyone knew the problem was bad. But no one knew just how bad until a team of researchers from the School of Public Health last week released the results of a study showing a positive correlation between the chemical contamination and the unusually high rate of childhood leukemia in the town. And that link will likely make all the difference for the town's residents who seek clean-up of the site and reparations...
...what about other towns in other states? The Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group recently estimated that there are over 100 toxic waste sites in Massachusetts alone; there are thousands in the country Citizens elsewhere, presumably, will not be so fortunate as to have a private research team willing to take up their cause. And as one SPH professor observed, state agencies simply have not got the funds to conduct in-depth studies of every affected community. The SPH researchers estimated that had their study been commissioned, the cost would have been $500,000 to $750,000. At this rate...
...Toxic waste is a national problem, with which individual states are simply not equipped to deal. But what has the federal government done about clean-up? The $1.6 billion Superfund program Congress passed four years ago was designed to fund clean-up of sites with revenue from a tax on the chemical companies themselves. This "revolving fund," however, never completely recovered the money it spent on costly legal suits to enforce liability...
...recent track record on the toxic waste issue has been less than commendable; one of erstwhile administrator Anne Burford's last moves, publishing a list ranking the country's worst dump sites, was dismissed by most as mere grandstanding. William Ruckelshaus, while promising to ask for more money for Superfund, has done little of substance...
...binding resolution placing a 90-day moratorium on all testing of nerve gas and blistering agents within city limits. City officials have expressed concern over such testing getting out of hand ever since last fall, when the Arthur D. Little Company opened its laboratories to experiment with toxic chemicals...