122 



Rebellion Over Environmental Rules 



red 



By KF.ITII SCHNEIDER 



COLUMBUS. Ohio - rins rily i!,d 

 i>M want to pave paradise tin .1 park 

 "'K loi li just wanted tucovei a paid 



HI weeds and mini behind ihr Shoi 

 Micei gaiagc. when- the env main 

 tains us flcci ol police rriuscrs am 

 gill b.igc trucks 



Dm iwo years ago. env eneineer' 

 here in Ohio's . capital d 

 I races of chemicals in ihe chrl and 

 learned thai ihc Federal hazardous 

 waste law might require a S2 million 

 cleanup before ihc fusi ounce ol 

 pavemeni could he laid Right then a 

 (orgeuable Inile sircich of urban 

 America became Ihe locus nl anger 

 and exasperation so profound thai 11 



clne'slno "."ale's"" C; ' m| "" gn amon S 



Af.cr ihc city issued a report on us 

 problems, all of a sudden Columbus's 

 leaders were |oined bv hundicds of 

 city officials, stale leaders and many 

 private homeowners across the coun- 

 try as they advoca.c a cause lha. 

 until now big business has been argu- 

 ing most loi cefully : that many ol the 

 nation's environmental rules bring 

 enormous expense for little gain 



Although independent safely spe- 

 cialists said the chemical concentra- 

 tions were loo small 10 cause any 

 harm, Federal law defined several of 

 the compounds as hazardous and re- 

 quired lhai ihcy be removed if de- 

 lectable in the soil at all. 



What the Law Demanded 



In effect, the law required the city 

 to take these expensive steps. 



IDig up 2< million pounds of dirt 

 containing no more .han a few pounds 

 of toxic chemicals from a patch of 

 ground no larger than a baseball dia- 



IShip thai dirt 1.500 miles south 10 

 Texas to be burned in an incinerator 



llnslall detection equipment 10 

 monitor the air for up to 25 years for 

 .races ol any con.aminanls lhal 

 might remain. 



All .his. the engineers asked to 

 expand a parking lot? 



They called a meeting at City Hall, 

 and (hat led to the first major study 10 

 idemify , he cost of complying with 

 federal environment! regula.ions. 

 It showed lha. environmen.al costs 

 were about 10 swamp Columbus in 

 red ink — or generate a revolt 



Now nearly 1,000 other cities have 

 asked to see IheVcporl. And prompt- 

 ed by ihe Columbus study, the Nation- 

 si League of Cities has made uodat- 



the 



— and through that reducing costs - 

 one of its top live political priorities ,n 

 Washington. 

 ' in ' n „'' anuar y- mayors from I H cities 

 in is slates opened the campaign by 

 sending President Clinton a teller 

 u 'ging the White House 10 focus on 

 how environmental policy-making 

 h =d. , n their view, eonc awry 



rong problems loi 



ayoi 



chnology,' 



During the Bush Administrano 

 William K Rcilly, the Administiau 

 of the Envuoninenlnl Pioleclic 

 Agency, offered public support U 

 ihis campaign and even began ode 

 ihr grams 10 siales lhai warned to r 





! thci 



With that money. Michigan and 

 Vermont were among the first 10 ap- 

 point panels ol cilizens and scientists 

 to examine environmental policy In 

 published reports, bolh slate's panels 

 concluded lhai Ihe largest sums of 

 money were being spent on ihe least 

 threatening environmental problems 

 like exposure 10 toxic and radioactive 

 wastes. In the .view of Ihese slate 

 panels, more imporlani issues, like 

 damage 10 farmland and foiests. 

 wcic being largely ignored. 



"We're really just aboot al the end 

 of the reductions in risk thai you can 

 achieve by the conventional ap- 

 proach, which is 10 crank down on Ihe 

 pollution coming out ol the end of Ihe 

 pipe," said Dr William Cooper, an 

 ecologisi ai Michigan Stale Universi- 

 ly who helped lead his stale's sludy 

 "Now we're inlo more subtle issues. 

 How clean do we really want our 

 environment? How much are we real- 

 ly willing 10 pay for il?" 



The Seeds 



Benefits Are Vague 

 As Policy Shifts 



The seeds of this grassroots push 

 lay in the Federal Government's shift 

 in focus over the last 15 years from 

 promoting broad environmental' 

 goals (purifying the air, cleansing the 

 water) to regulating specific toxic 

 substances dioxin, asbestos and doz- 

 ens of other compounds found at 

 trace levels in drinking water, chemi- 

 cal-waste sites and the like 



Controlling the kind of pollution 

 that poured out of automobile tail- 

 pipes or factory smokestacks, and 

 stopping waste discharges into rivers 

 and streams, showed clear social 

 benefits. And so public acceptance 

 usually came easily. 



But the improvements in health or 

 environmental safety from the more 

 recent efforts have been less obvious 

 Scientists continue to debate how 

 dangerous dioxin may really be. An 

 industrial byproduct, dioxin was once 

 considered the most toxic substance 

 known to man Reducing dioxin levels 

 to the Federal standard — less than 

 13 parts per quintilhon in drinking 

 wnier. the equivalent of a single drop 

 in Lake Michigan — is difficult and 



fits result 



More than 10 years ago, the Fed 

 cral Government adopted the view 



bcttci in i. ike the prudent approach 

 than do nothing. But a decade later, 

 the economic costs of tins policy arc 

 painfully clear while the benefits re- 

 main largely immeasurable 



Last year, home owners, farmers, 

 miners and umber industry workers 

 roared into Washington and brought 

 to a standstill Congressional efforts 

 to reauthorize the Endangered Spe- 

 cies Act and the Clean Water Act, two 

 of the laws that form the foundation 

 ol American environmental policy 

 President Bush focused on this theme 

 during his re-election campaign, 

 largely siding with these protesters 



This year, city and state leaders 

 have joined in a campaign to write 

 into statutes a provision requiring the 

 Federal Government to evaluate sci- 

 entific evidence and the cost to com- 

 munities before issuing new environ- 



Leaders of the major environmen- 

 tal groups are fighting this Idea Thev 

 argue that it would set a level of proof 

 so difficult to meet that the Govern- 

 ment could not write new regulations 

 until people started dying. 



But backers ol the provision assert 

 that unless changes arc made, public 

 support for environmental protec- 

 tions will crumble as costs rise. 



The Anger 



Counting the Costs 

 In a City Hall 



It was precisely this issue of cost 

 lhal prompted the Columbus engi- 

 neers lo call a meeting In January 

 1991 One participant, Michael J. 

 Pompili. who was In charge of the 

 Columbus Heallh Department's envl- 

 ronmenlal-heallh division, had on his 

 own been quietly studying how much 

 ihe city would have to pay lo comply 

 with a new wave ol rules coming out 

 ol Washington. These were intended 

 lo prevent public exposure lo minute 

 levels of chemicals In air and water. 



"The guys were talking about 

 spending all lhal money for nothing 



ai the Short Sircet garage," he said in 

 an interview "They were complain- 

 ing about the $2 million. And 1 said 



U 



lim- 



it's 



lot 



c lhan thai, I lold them my guys 

 identified millions more in costs 

 wide to meet Federal environ- 

 ilal requirements, and where 

 e wc going to gel the money lo 

 i those mandates?" 



