(00:00:00) Hi, I'm Robert. Krulwich. And here is the question of debate for today. The question is local government or this is not a question. This is a statement local government should have the right to veto hazardous waste hazardous waste dump sites. Meaning that if you are in a town and someone has a poison and wants to put it in or on the ground in your town who should decide where the poison should go. Should it be the local people should be local government have an absolute veto and say no you may not put it here or should some other authority of the state or perhaps the federal government have a say maybe override the local citizens Choice. That's the question in the affirmative arguing that the local government should have the right is mr. William sander. He is the technical advisor to the citizens Clearinghouse on hazardous waste which very briefly is why it's a citizen's organization founded by Lois Gibbs who needed no let the Love Canal Association fight and you go to various places around the country. That's correct. I help citizens out when they (00:01:05) have battles are trying to fight against landfill (00:01:08) operators. Okay during the day is however, this gentleman also is the chief of hazardous waste implementation in the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC. So you work for the federal government during the daytime. Okay opposite him is mr. Or dr. David Morel. He is a professor at Princeton University. He's associated with the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. He has a new book out called this is a long title, but it's called citing hazardous waste hazardous waste facilities hazardous waste facilities local opposition in the myth of preemption just published in 1982 by balance your press and Cambridge Massachusetts will begin now. The rules are each of these gentlemen's has three minutes to himself to talk to you and the audience and then we will go into General discussion and the opening three minutes and remember if you go over the three minutes a large Will cling so be careful is mr. Williams and sure go ahead. Thank you in about 1974. I was given the job to investigate the problems of hazardous waste in America. This was (00:02:12) long before Love Canal and long before (00:02:14) the national publicity about hazardous waste and this was done at the instigation of Congress requirement placed on the Environmental Protection Agency. And I had a rather large (00:02:27) staff and tens of millions of dollars to spend and among the chief (00:02:30) findings of those studies was that most hazardous toxic industrial wastes in America are disposed of in dumps called landfills and inevitably these waste will leak into groundwater if there is groundwater and will pollute it and will poison the people living Downstream in addition to other ways of getting into the environment. During the intervening years many people including EPA looked at many different ways of trying to contain waste in these dumps and none of them have ever succeeded. There are many alternative ways of disposing of hazardous waste which do not involve dumping but these techniques are usually more expensive and as a result, they're not widely used. The upshot of all this (00:03:18) is that anyone who (00:03:21) locates a hazardous waste dump in a community condemns that Community to death disease and bankruptcy. (00:03:31) Any law which requires those (00:03:33) dumps to be located in the community is lunacy and tyranny. Okay, that's Professor girl's chair. Thank you. (00:03:42) We are facing is mr. Sandra noted a serious environmental crisis the crisis however is not associated only with these wastes in dump sites, but is associated with the very generation of these ways. The numbers are striking and I think we need to frame the debate with some understanding of the numbers epa's best estimate. Probably low is that in 1980. We generated 43 million metric tons of hazardous waste in this country. That's about 1 pound per person per day for each of us. In addition. There are 30,000 to 50,000 dumpsites old ones abandoned out there the legacy of past illicit disposal without adequate environmental standards, and there is a large and growing amount of illegal disposal of hazardous waste throughout the country from one Coast to the other disposal at night the so called Midnight dumping in order to adequately protect the environment from all of these wastes the new wastes and the cleaned up old ways from the old dump sites. We need new facilities new policies are calling for the treatment of those ways physical and chemical treatment incineration. And so on those treatment processes also lead to some residuals that are left after the treatment has been accomplished in order to build needed facilities for treatment and for ultimate disposal of these wastes. We require adequate sites for those facilities such sites in recent years have been opposed by citizen opposition understandable given the legacy of the past but insupportable parochialism given the needs of our broader Society what can be done to resolve this dilemma between local concern over a hazardous waste facility and their own community and the regional State national and even planetary need for adequate facilities to handle this enormous load of wastes. I argue in my recent book for a two-step process. I reject local parochialism a total and absolute veto as unacceptably narrow as not giving us enough of the right kinds of facilities in the right kinds of places and therefore contributing to Illegal disposal Which is far more dangerous than these facilities in response. However, many states have moved to State preemption pulling all of the authority into the hands of the states. I've argued in my book as the subtitle indicates that this is a myth of preemption instead I argue for a two step process first a clear local decision with full local participation. Yes, or no on the proposed facility followed where necessary by an override by state Authority in order that the interests of the broader citizenry in protecting all of us from illegal disposal of these ways can be adequately maintained. Thank you. (00:06:19) Okay, let me let me begin at the very beginning for me. Anyway when I think of hazardous wastes, I think usually have a chemical Me making something obscure, but probably something I use whether it's glue or something. Maybe the bibbity ingredients of a bottle of Pepsi. But are we talking about also what other Industries have this this waste candy companies or (00:06:43) what every industry produces almost every industry produces some of these wastes in addition to the petrochemical industry that you've already mentioned Pharmaceuticals to produce many of the items that we clearly need for life itself are producing these weights in the pharmaceutical process automobiles steel all of the heavy Industries produce these weights paint produces a large known paint and dies and so on. So we closing all of it is associated with with these synthetic (00:07:10) products we couldn't do without waste. This is just something we have to completely not the irony is that there are many ways of disposing of waste without dumping them. There are many chemical treatment and generation and recycling techniques (00:07:22) available. They're already available. (00:07:24) No bit (00:07:26) of hazardous waste need ever be Get on the ground none. Let me ask about that. I disagree with you. But before you start to fight you just out (00:07:33) of the ground. The impression I have is that at least for a very long time? What actually happens is if you have something that you don't you can't use anymore and it's dirty or toxic or poison you Jesus literally the case you dig a hole in the ground and stick the stuff in the ground period but if you're polite if you're impolite to just dig a hole in the ground and just stick on top without even covering it stick it on top of what the ground We mean you did you make a little Mound that or they go ho or certainly the modern (00:08:04) standards for these facilities have gone a good deal beyond that. They do look for clay. They look for 10 20 30 feet of clay. They often a new EPA regulations are apparently requiring the the use of synthetic liners essentially a plastic liner, which presumably is designed to deal with these materials in arid areas of the Southwest for example, the waster placed in Drums, which of course will leak through after a while and roughly three feet of dirt is put on top of them that the great point is that these treatment facilities that I think we both agree are the shape of the future are probably appropriate for somewhere around at best 75% of the total waste Stream So that about 25 percent according to the clearest study of this done in California and called alternatives to the land disposal of hazardous waste still said that 75% of the waste would be treatable the other 25% not but in addition these produced residuals, they cleanse the waste they reduce toxicity, but they are not unfortunately a magic answer. And so even they will need residuals repositories to store what's left after the treatment even an incineration produces an (00:09:07) ash. Okay, but let me make sure I understand this for the most part. Let's say for the last 25 years the hole in the ground where the mound on the ground has been the standard solution and yes still is yes now still is and there's lots of that stuff leaking right as we speak. Yes now is it was the stuff put in and we for example if I had some highly awful material a and then I put that in the ground then my company gets a delivery of Highly awful substance B, which is never met a and God knows what would happen if they touched do I then put substance be on top of a or alongside a typically what goes on both this really have been cases where people have mixed day and being on the ground and they've exploded and caught fire or produced dangerous acids and other chemicals people have been killed in landfills because of mixing of chemicals people in their homes. People are also killed (00:09:57) certainly from the illegal disposal of these Rooms in which they're simply dumped at night. They say that in New Jersey one of the principal mechanisms of waste disposal is to drive a tanker truck up and down the New Jersey Turnpike at night with the back open a little bit as it dribbles out on the wet pavement (00:10:11) right. Now. Those are the kinds of environmental concerns that we have. Let me turn to the good the other the other option that you've both mentioned instead of a hole or a mound. There is something called a treatment facility, which is I assume what a nicer whole or Mound or a building or what it is a chemical or (00:10:28) physical facility of set of pipes and incinerator and oxidation unit a physical treatment plant, which would filter this material and ionization unit which would give it electrically charged particles and then pull the for example a metal a zinc or a lead out of a liquid waste stream through that process how my produces these what it creates cleaner water. Most of these weights are in liquid waste streams and a sludge and it remaining material which then has to be either incinerated if you can which itself leaves an ash or disposed of On The Ground by the Assets, however, you can neutralize (00:11:01) does the business that treats the stuff charge a lot more than the business that buries the stuff. Yes. Yes how much more in proportion several times several times? All right. Let me the next question. Let's see here. Do we I have this impression that because we are eating and dressing and using glue every day. There must be an awful lot of new waste coming on stream. Is it correct to believe that the United States and each individual state will need in a very short period of time a lot more of these places soon or can we do with what we've got or something comes on how you define? If you're allowing things to continue as they are going presently, then you probably don't need a lot more because there are many united with disposal facilities already in America with a lot of capacity. If you want to do it, right then you're going to need more. (00:11:51) It also depends on their size. Obviously if you're going to build small ones, which have less of a concentrated cost on the local community, which may well be desirable. Will in the aggregate need more of those (00:12:01) we can build IQ, very (00:12:02) large treatment centers which have an enormous impact on a host Community. You will need fewer of them. What does he want to relay numbers like rotation. If you build a build only a few say five for 50 states, you have a lot of trucks running around if you build 10 in every state or 500 you have a much less Transportation requirement, but you have 500 side and controversies instead of (00:12:24) only 10. Could you really get away with something as small as 10 big ones for the whole country? I wouldn't like to I wouldn't either I (00:12:31) thought (00:12:34) well (00:12:35) most hazardous waste are still handled by companies themselves. And when you're talking about a few (00:12:40) number of large facilities, you're talking about changing the trend away from companies handling their own ways to Some central processing. I wouldn't like to see (00:12:48) that Trend happen. I would like to see companies handle their only it's (00:12:50) their garbage. It's not the garbage of the communities where they (00:12:53) located. In fact, most of it is handled that way today, but not handle very well often. We estimate 90% of the total. Waste stream is handled on site by the companies themselves and are roughly 10% is going to these off-site facility so that terminology, but that's the jargon in this (00:13:08) field. Meaning that you do it in the backyard of your own fact, I appreciate the parking lots, correct. If you're if you're doing it right (00:13:14) reasonably, right? And otherwise you throw it in the sewer in your own company that goes into the sewer. (00:13:19) Okay, last introductory question is this dumping right into the sewer running along the highway if you do drive a truck along the New Jersey Turnpike, as you said and you pour out this stuff on the side and it's discovered forget the criminal problem. What do you do to the Earth to clean it up? Go ahead. These will be Pi. Well, first thing you have to do is collect (00:13:44) that Earth in some way we've had examples for example a PCB spills a very dangerous chemical and one which does not degrade easily one which can apparently be incinerated at very high temperatures when it is isolated as a you scoop up I want is in the dirt. It's no there's no way to incinerate it. It's become so expensive and so cumbersome that it simply wants illegally dumped has to be collected and placed somewhere and indeed that produces a great deal of controversy in (00:14:08) sure you mean you'll have to take away those stupid up whooping on a spoon or a bulldozer (00:14:12) depending on the size of the spill and take it somewhere (00:14:16) where to a very far away if (00:14:18) it's not if it's dirt in very low concentrations with PCB or some of these others, then it will have to be taken to a Landis postal facility Well (00:14:26) see the problem with that philosophy is that you're now condemning the people who live in that landfill to suffer the consequences of an act that had nothing to do with when I was asked that question. I was from Warren County North Carolina last Sunday where they're having that for a problem when I was asked that question. (00:14:39) Reporter (00:14:40) my facetiously said they ought to scoop it up and put it on the back yard of the guy who produced it. It's (00:14:45) his waist and it's his problem. (00:14:47) And why should the people in Warren County North Carolina be victimized by somebody else's car? (00:14:51) Why should the people along that road side be victimized or along the New Jersey Turnpike. I'm all for what we're doing is locating the best facilities we can design modern facilities primarily treatment, but where necessary land residuals for their ultimate disposal and building the best facilities, we can providing buffer zones around them. And then using them in order to protect people who live near the (00:15:12) highways. Is it very expensive to do this? Is it very expensive to cart off Earth if you're going to if we're going to test it is I think you're going to get sidetracked if we spend too much time just because that's that's rather a different. I wonder where problem and it's very much of a (00:15:27) sort of very much quarter this issue because in fact it is that kind of a product which is not amenable to the modern Technologies of treatment and therefore has to be dumped either in an existing dump which might be a problem in a new Dump designed and cited properly to handle these ways or as mr. Sandler says back on the on the yard of the person who produced or not. I think the residents of that Community served might raise some questions about that that theory when you say it's not a (00:15:54) mutable you don't mean it's not a mutable, you know, it's not a mutable at a price you're willing to pay (00:15:59) when it's mixed with yogurt. It becomes nearly party (00:16:01) animal that stuff could have been caught it to a (00:16:03) landfill that had no connection with groundwater. That's correct out a thousand miles of that's not necessarily treatment. It (00:16:10) could have been incinerated at a huge cost. There are they could have been chemically fixed at a huge cost when you say amiable. You may say I mean (00:16:18) about a prior telling me what to say these could be chemically fixated. I don't believe that (00:16:22) well, let me let me just try this. Try this as a test case. I want it you're the town and I'm going to be the company that comes to town because this basically comes down to how we going to make this decision and I arrived in the town and I call myself. My company is called Enviro safe. There was a really such a company it was going to be an attack or Enviro sound will come and I hold a press conference on day one. Now. What's your reaction to this? I am I say this town is going to get 25 jobs when we've completed our treatment and dumping Center. I'll combine them we're doing both we are very safe after all safe is in our his our middle name. Okay. I conclude the press conference. What would be the typical reaction of the community? Would you like my reaction? Yeah, whatever tell the community. Okay both Kelly what the community would say and what you advise you say hell no put it somewhere else. Okay, (00:17:15) not in my backyard put it anywhere else would be the typical reaction. (00:17:18) Of course is part of the problem. What I would say is that if you really know how to dump hazardous waste and you must really have come up with something because you mr. Enviro sound have been in the house. This way is nothing business for Lo these many years and you've lifted the entire Countryside of America with hazardous waste dumps that are now leaking and which are causing a public of billions of dollars to clean up and you'd have a built a hazardous waste landfill as work yet. And you've come here and you're telling us you know, how to build one. What's the magic that you're using? (00:17:43) Remember? The question was that he was going to build a treatment center with a residual is repository and a dump for those treated residuals and that would not be what he has done in the past because we haven't had many of those in the past. No one need ever put a hazardous waste in the ground. I will repeat I (00:17:58) disagree. All right is chemically fix it that has not worked so far. So I'm going to take the next step I call up the mayor but I don't let anyone else thought I called the mayor and I arranged for full tuition for his children to college. I do this also for the chairman of the city council. Nobody knows this. I offer the town a fire engine and also to rebuild the park. I'm not changed my proposal anyway, but I am going to be a very good citizen and in Rapid order the mayor and the city council announces that they welcomed my in virus on company into the community is this happened by it's exactly how it works. They make the they buy the land from some local politician for the site and give them an inflated price. They give Consulting Used to the city council city councilman in Baltimore was just sent up to prison for for taking Consulting fees from Elijah. Hazardous waste. I don't do any group liable here. You have studied that case study seems medications have what I said bring it all to (00:18:53) sometimes of course as happens with shopping centers as happens with commercial Office Buildings as happens with all of our land use decision making and part of what I think we both would agree on is a much more adequate program of public participation so that the local residents can have their views part of the decision-making process and that the elected officials are not the only ones whose used to should be heard it be and when I'm also saying is that the citizens of communities that aren't in the host community that is to say the residents of the state as a whole needs some kind of voice in this decision as well that we can't put all of our marbles simply on that local (00:19:31) community. Would it work if I owned the city government if I'm able to get the mayor and the city council my side would that be enough to (00:19:38) else in Villa, Illinois? For example? They had an approved facility and a number of the citizens raised such a Ruckus that they were able to close. The facility in recent case in Massachusetts a landowner had agreed to sell the land and so much pressure from his colleagues and peers in the town was put on that. He was forced to rescind his sale of the land to the facility developer Time After Time. What we're finding is that intense local opposition is blunting our ability to move forward with these are the (00:20:05) policies of the city's position. That's correct. Now he says in his book, he one of the suggestions he makes is that the company instead of buying up the town knows essentially. What is it negotiation? It goes to the town and it says look, we have a blueprint which we invite you to inspect and the town inspects the company of if I misquoting you tell me if I'm wrong but the company has in its pocket a couple of extra layers of protection that it will add if the town wants it so built into the negotiation is this sort of second and third step of the company is willing to Do in the interest of fair play that right (00:20:42) not only layers of protection. And in fact, not primarily that I would argue that the facility ought to have as much protection as we can design into it from the beginning or shouldn't be built at all. But extra operating procedures, for example, if one of the problems with this facility is trucks down the main street as it was in Wilsonville, Illinois, then part of the negotiations are I will finance the county for example to build a new road into the facility from the back end so that the trucks won't Traverse Main Street that I will provide the extra services for the community and in addition, of course, what they're negotiating is the payment of taxes (00:21:18) gross receipts tax. How about this? I'm offering you a special plan a plan a you can expect it and I'm willing to come with Plan B and plan C up to a point. I'm not going to dig a hole to China or anything, but I'm going to spend more money than I initially said I would because you've asked me to how do you react the problems with putting waste in a hole in the ground? No matter how That hole is is sooner or later. It will come out as sure as water flows downhill that waste is going to come out of the ground and that's going to poison the groundwater and it may poison lots of other things besides they'll all this fancy technology you're talking about just delays that inevitability (00:21:55) and when that happens (00:21:57) when it inevitably (00:21:57) happens, it's going to cost a fortune to clean up its going to wipe out people's (00:22:01) property. It's going to ruin people's lives and health is going to cause infantile Cancers and leukemias. They you forgotten what I want with your course and it could cost a fortune. It's going to cost 10 (00:22:14) times as much as the town ever made to clean the mess up and it's basically the state and the county who can (00:22:19) have to bear the cost of any federal (00:22:21) taxpayers through super fun. But that's the stories of the past not the future the way we're doing that this facility a new facility has been built with there's usable groundwater. I think that the sighting criteria point in the other direction, so they do not they certainly do no, sir. For example in Connecticut the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Explored all of the groundwater in the state of Connecticut as I understand it and has decided and defined where it's usable groundwater. Where's unusable groundwater for new facilities and is pointing toward the sighting of new facilities in the areas. Where (00:22:52) ground are you saying? There is such a thing as a leak-proof treatments are absolutely not but (00:22:57) what where there is rain now where you get an arid environment in Arizona or Nevada or parts of Texas. You may come very close to that indeed where there is no rain or where the rates of evaporation for example parts of the great desert May evaporate 13 feet per year net evaporation there you may be able to dispose of the waste. Are you saying the ground that the (00:23:17) risk can be reduced sufficiently that it's not going to be obnoxious (00:23:20) 984 those waste which have been previously treated that's interesting. You mentioned Connecticut regulations because the gentleman wrote the Connecticut (00:23:27) regulations wrote the earlier draft of the Federal Regulations fact, he's right here in the audience (00:23:31) and (00:23:33) those were published a couple years ago proposed in the Federal Register is federal regulations, and they were Then rejected by this Administration which has (00:23:42) now come out with new regulations, which in fact do none of those things you pointed out and in fact, which allow landfills to be located anywhere. Federal Regulations, that's correct. And that's not acceptable. What I'm saying is the Connecticut has engaged in a mapping of the entire States groundwater in order to help Orient the sighting of new facilities in the best locations in the state of Connecticut regardless of the regulations, that is the way in which Connecticut has gone about his task and other states certainly could do that. But in addition you want to remember that the federal act which is indeed week in terms of its regulations from EPA does not preempt State regulation that is to say states are not required. But let me go in a second only to that level as is true in nuclear power regulation under the atomic energy act where the feds pre empty whole Arena here States many states have gone further in their regulation. I advocate they're doing that. (00:24:34) I want to lean on you a little bit. I have offered you 25 jobs. I've offered you the pool or the park. I've offered you the fire engine. I've offered you what I think of you as my best effort at containing this waste I'm warning you that if you don't buy my plan. Cops are going to come rolling through your town and your neighbors town and dump the stuff. Now, are you sure you don't want to negotiate with me? I don't know depends a lot of on my my the town mayor that you're the tablet you're the town and you're also a husband. It also depends what kind of person I am. I could very well negotiate with you and then then sell out move to another town. That's the easy way out. Well, I'll put money into it because his book has a lot of money. How about if I let me add some let's say you ask me to pay you right and I say I tell you what, I will pay you 5% of our Billings if we do a ten million dollars worth of business or five million dollars worth of business. I'll pay you the Town Ten Percent thirty years after this landfill closes. Are you going to pay the victims? That garbage moving out of your landfill into those into the community. Are you going to pay (00:25:42) them? That's what the point is. And of course, you're not going to pay them. You can't afford it (00:25:46) that's going to cost more than your landfill ever brought in hundreds of times more. What do you say to this (00:25:51) a number of states are already moving to require Insurance EPA has not had his chosen to back off on those regulations. A number of states are requiring bonding of these facilities in order to have an assurance bond in the in perpetuity and they are dealing with the problem in this way and that of course state and federal Superfund programs are designed to share these cost more broadly should or when they occur down the road. We're not talking about the old dummy (00:26:16) money standing behind me. If there's any fires if your children get very ill your grandchildren, there's a super fun. Yes. I know it's super fund is and then is when anywhere near enough to cover the kind of disasters. We're going to encounter in the future. We need a super duper fun and Ultra fun, but let me just point out. One thing was the Hazardous Waste Builder and you're only in virus a virus 8947507 Your own lobbyists in Washington lobbied Congress for years to get a law passed which we would remove your liability five (00:26:47) years after this Landfill closed (00:26:49) and transfer all your liability to the federal government. Now (00:26:52) if you have such confidence in that landfill, why did you Lobby so long to get that law passed? So I do this? (00:26:57) Yes certainly dead. Have you sir? Tell you what I did in other (00:27:02) states on their own are beginning to implement strict liability rules. All (00:27:05) right. I'm state by state. We're going to go strict liability anybody in this town starting the day I open shop who has let's limit it for a while who can show go to court and prove that they have been damaged by my company's Treatment Center if they have any, you know, if someone gets sick in the house with will prove causality if the ash Falls all over their windows are they have to do more cleanup bill. They just come to court assert their claim and I am strictly liable or perpetuity. And you've got the money up front to cover it. Then you'd be foolish to build a landfill and all that kind of money. I have to put up that's called a nobody no industry puts all the money up front. I should have, you know, if industry leaves thousands of tons of poison behind when they (00:27:46) move out either that's the distinction you're talking about leaving thousands of tons of sun those poisonous stuff in the World Behind and walking away from it, but it's an underground damn full of poison. (00:27:56) Well, isn't this poison going to be dumped some place? Anyway know you can treat it and transform it into something that is not poisonous, but you ever will be left (00:28:04) with residuals that is not dealt with you will still be left with the need to clean up 1200 to 2000 existing dump sites that pose according to your agency imminent significant danger to Public Health. Those ways have to be cleansed and move somewhere. You have to clear the nation in treatment because if you do what you're suggesting with the dirt from the side of the road, which is to incinerate it at some astronomical cost and clogging the incinerator is one of the problems with incinerating dirt. So that it runs the cost up because it doesn't work. Well it isn't designed to do that. What will happen with the next load of illegal dumping if the you've built a set of prices that are so high that we don't have a mixed system of treatment where it is feasible and economical and land disposal where treatment is infeasible and unacceptable. That is the kind of mixed system. We need I (00:28:51) have to pause briefly to tell the audience what we're doing we are having a discussion about whether local government should have the right to veto hazardous. Hazardous waste dump sites. Look at that right and talking about it. Our William Sandra is technical advisor to the citizens Clearinghouse on hazardous waste that's this gentleman on my right television left. Probably and David Morel. And for radio. I apologize is in the void somewhere David morale is Princeton University. He's with the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. You have a difference here that I think we ought to try to resolve you. Say what that waste. All of these poisons can be neutralized and you say no they (00:29:30) can't I say the vast Majority can and we're not now neutralizing them and we should but only one of them can I'm also saying when they are you were still left with (00:29:38) residuals. Okay, let's talk about the residuals issue and not dirt dirt is a (00:29:43) dirt. We weren't talking about dirty ground. He saw he's (00:29:45) in it there decide chemical waste which are organic can be incinerated. This leaves an - which could very well be toxic non organic wastes in organic waste can't be incinerated. (00:30:01) Now. There are also if nothing else fails (00:30:03) you can exchange these ways, but let's say all of the techniques fail and you're still left with some toxic residual there are techniques called fixation chemical fixation. There are many companies which manufacture this table X can fix our companies which (00:30:17) and they turn this had trouble getting citing for example in New Hampshire. That's the different point this product. These (00:30:22) processes will render waste non-hazardous. So there are technical technically it's viable. That's right. And these techniques will work on any residues so long as they're in (00:30:32) organic last overstated from my point of view. They will render them more stable for longer periods of time. They will not render them geologically non-hazardous in perpetuity. We're still dealing with some hazardous residues placed in the best location. Okay, fine Henderson's I'm defining a (00:30:48) hazardous waste at the way. It's defined (00:30:50) under the law. (00:30:51) Hazardous waste and these will these techniques will render a waste (00:30:54) non-hazardous as defined by the law. (00:30:57) Okay. Okay. Now do you agree with me (00:31:00) with many of these though not all of them. I do not believe you can deal with the entire waste (00:31:04) treatment. I have one more chapter in my the (00:31:05) most forthright study of this is not a federal EPA study at all is a study from California called alternative to the land disposal of hazardous waste that study goes so far as to say that 75% of the waste stream can be treated. I think that that's probably her I bought right and that's about the best we can do not leave you with a quarter. (00:31:22) I think the considered fixation is a treatment technique. All right. Let me baby. I got my company has proposed and is perfectly able to build and can boil or burn whatever significant enough waste to be a viable business. We think but no Town wants me. So I turned to the state to the governor and I say make them do it. I mean someone has to we all agree that the treatment centers a good idea but nobody wants it in their town. So I say preempt or just ignore the local laws and insist now, you don't like that idea you're talking about treatment center rather than a landfill a lot of either or well if it's a dump, I don't like that idea know if it's Treatment Center. (00:32:01) Well, then it falls in the same category is (00:32:03) hospitals or a lunatic asylums or highways and I'm not sure I (00:32:06) have any strong advertising building with you. I still don't like that idea the way you've defined it in terms of the state pre-empting local decision. I argue for a two-step process in which you have a full exposure of local opposition to a treatment facility to a stabilization plant to all of these facilities followed where necessary in order to protect the broader citizenry by a state override of that local decision. I believe that it's much harder to have a state override the state preemption. We have a preemption has no local decision-making at all. The state makes the decision. We've all seen State hearings where the hearing officer arrives typically at night in a high school bangs that gavel everybody shouts. No not here. He banged the gavel at 11:30 when he finally staggers out of the town and he goes home somewhere else of course, and that's and he makes his decision (00:32:50) preemption. But here I have (00:32:52) had the full local decision first followed where necessary by a state override (00:32:57) other does that equal the town gathers in the high school gymnasium and says no no no and they do it all organized and then four days later the state guy comes in and goes. Yes and everybody (00:33:08) far more than that, but maybe that maybe that maybe that in the end. What I'm trying to do is distinguish between the outcome in the process the outcome may be the placement of this treatment center in the very best location in the state and the county in the region and the country wherever at whatever level you want to talk about. That's the outcome and you may have some of the local costs placed on that local community in order to host this necessary facility. And that's a fact of life the way you get it there. The process can be the best process we can design what I'm arguing is not only should the engineers be asked indeed required to design the best environmental Technologies for these Ways but that the political scientist and the polity must be required to design a very best decision making process and that's not arriving in a high school four days later banging the gavel and saying that's where it goes. It may in the end requires that that facility to be built in that location. But the process is very important (00:33:58) one last question to you will go to questions. So if you want to get up to the mics you can now the question is if it's gentle and there are meetings and there everybody feels gets the chance to have his or her say and there seems to be a negotiation. Would you allow the state to make the final ruling if it's a dump? No, it's lunacy. (00:34:19) It doesn't matter how rational the process is. If you know the (00:34:23) product the end product is lunacy people speaking calmly doesn't change that that just calm lunatics 101 very last question. And that is I'm the company. I have a whole new tact. My clients tell me that they should be encouraged to take their waste to my facility and that really the their answer to this problem is that the citizens of our state as in the bottle laws for example should pay the local Brewery and the local clothes manufacturer pay them money. They should say we invite you to cart your waist to envira sound and when you do we will give you a sum of money to congratulate you and that will divert more of the wastes to these centers know this is sort of an ancillary question, but I'm wondering is that you agree with the sort of like the sound of that? I'm not sure I followed it. Well, I'm a tried Robert because it is one of the ideas that's in my book. I'm arguing (00:35:17) that we will always have some level of problem with illegal disposal unless we develop something in the Hazardous Waste field akin to the bottle bill that is to say to tax the industry at the point of waste generation sufficiently to build site and operates and adequate environmentally sound and viral sound facilities. And then provide sufficient Revenue so that Enviro sound pays the guy with a barrel of pcbs $100 to bring that waste to him instead of having it accidentally go down the sewer or fall off the truck at midnight in (00:35:46) the enviros sound pays the beer guy for bringing his pollutants to me and go Tyson virus (00:35:53) virus. The tax system is designed so that we generate sufficient revenues at the point of waste generation in order to be able to do that. That's a ways off in terms of public policy, but I (00:36:02) don't tell you just who gives me the dough to pay the Brewer (00:36:06) the state government or the federal government through taxing the waist generating industry and per ton of ways. (00:36:10) So the Brewer paid a tax, (00:36:12) that's right when it was either that or the Hops maker when he when he whatever I (00:36:17) don't hop really hot enough and the money comes back to him when he carts that correct just (00:36:21) like a bottle bill when you buy a bottle of whatever diet drink you buy you pay a dime and then you get it back when you turn it into some other (00:36:28) store. Well, that's just that's just a revenue scam. I mean, it's a if the citizens choose to subsidize Industrial Waste Disposal, I guess they Right to do that. And so the question of distribution scheme designed to avoid illegal to the only issue I'm concerned with is that this Amara sounds like to talk about is it a dumper, isn't it? If it's a dump I'm still against it Revenue collection schemes or not. And if it's not a dump very well, I guess you can do it if you want to. Okay, let's go to how about you over there in the on the right? (00:36:53) Well the question I'd like to ask both gentlemen is this why don't you go back to the source of this poisonous material and force those people to do something about correcting it now, for example, the Japanese found that there was a great deal of mercury that leaked into one of their bey's Mercury is a very valuable commodity so are some of these heavy metals you're talking about form the poisonous waste that our residuals why not attack it at the source. What's the matter with (00:37:25) that? (00:37:28) Perhaps I have that and I think bills Angela will have more to say on and as well attempts are being made to do that. It is obviously part of the long-term solution. It's been very difficult. So far the costs of land disposal or indeed of treatment have been so much lower the complexities and the production process because the course of the land disposal, you know, that leaves the residuals there to poison people if you get the source to do it and I presume you don't because these people have a good deal of lobbying power then I think what we have to do is come back and get the citizens to (00:38:03) Lobby against this kind of thing and force him to (00:38:05) do it what we found for example in studies done by the chemical engineering department at Princeton who have been looking heavily at this is that there are ways for some of the chemical waste come some of the chemical production processes to make those same products with fewer ways, but they're very much more costly and there is a lot of work going on to try to figure out ways to do it in a much less costly man cost is higher. (00:38:27) I'm a little Is about criminal prosecutions have the are there regularly criminal prosecutions for sneaking out in the middle of the night and and dumping on the sure people are caught (00:38:36) a few very pyramid The Rules of Evidence are (00:38:40) frequently attended citizens groups in the High School auditorium is referred to as Citizens meetings, and I asked the question when I get out there anybody who's dumb hazardous waste out there. Would you raise your hand? Anybody was generated and no hands have a show up and I point out the look here. Are you people who have nothing to do with this? Hazardous waste you didn't produce it. And here I am. I I didn't produce it and hear all these government officials talking to you and they didn't produce it. So here are all second and third parties having these discussions with each other and the guy who's responsible for it is not here. He never takes part in the discussions. He doesn't talk in the debates. He's not even a party and it's (00:39:18) his garbage and here are a bunch of people who had nothing to do with that garbage talking about what to do with somebody else's garbage (00:39:24) the white lady. Let me just finish the point. Why is that man? Never hear? Why does he never take part in any of the debates about what to do with his garbage? Because he carries on his discussions in the locker room at the golf course with the with the politicians. He walks in his his well-heeled lobbyists walks into the White House and walks into the houses of the Congressional leaders. He contributes the big packs. He gives a Consulting fees to local politicians. So he doesn't have to take parties today give you this argument. I'll Stand in the in the we're worth of the dining room the gym. I'll Stand in the gym and I'll speak for him as I get locker room in the locker room. Alpha the gossip know he's in the locker room. And he says all right show of hands in this Auditorium for the number of people who would like to pay a nickel more for chewing gum a quarter more for a case of beer up a six-pack of beer a $60 more for the car. How many hands I've seen the hands come up. I've asked people how many of you how many of you would refuse to pay the additional cost to dispose of this waste properly for your product without even telling them how much would cost how many of you will refuse to nobody raised their you don't tell them how much it's going to raise the cost of polyester pants on nickel. That's the kind of cost you talking about. It's not all that much money to (00:40:53) do it. But I think some of those costs now through the through super fund which obviously is being passed on but I think the other point I'd like to make here. Is that while appealing it's too simplistic to think of it as his waist that other big bad guys waste who generates the waist. Who do you think he sells those products to when we talked about the tonnage of way sighs it's about a pound per person per day. It's all of our waste. We're the ones who are demanding products that have 50,000 chemicals in them constantly and we are not being offered an adequate choice to be sure with respect to taxes, but that will come with time and that's what much of the debate (00:41:26) when you try that line on a farmer. We are trying to locate the landfills their comeback is look I don't give you the cow manure when I sell you the milk do I I don't have we better not get into Cal. How about going to the audience quickly? Yeah. Go ahead. Well, assuming that we recognize in basic need for a land disposal facility for as a last resort for certain types of hazardous waste if a local community were given the power Absolute veto over citing what are the odds that they would ever approve of facility in their backyard taking into consideration awareness of historical problems, emotionalism negative publicity. Are you asking for dumps or or land disposal facility land disposal the whole shebang land disposal Beyond treatment, the (00:42:10) ultimate residuals management then that we disagree as to whether any new ones will be needed. (00:42:15) But what are the odds that the townspeople ever even approve of such a sighting if they had the power (00:42:19) to my ultimate decision in my opinion small but not zero and particularly not zero in a two-step process in which they fear that if they make a to parochial decision, if in fact it's a good site without ground water without usable groundwater if they simply make an emotional not in my backyard decision on a good site and a good facility would properly design roads and so on then indeed the state will override them. I've asked myself why would a community ever say Yes again having said the odds are slim because hosting these facilities from the local point of Has more costs than it has benefits. There aren't many jobs. There aren't enough taxes to be sure but the broader Community needs them so that what I've said is suppose you were able in your state citing law to give the local community the authority to impose certain conditions on that permit for that facility in a yes decision. But if they said no which would feel better then they would lose the authority to impose operating conditions and that would pass on up to the state level that would then pay place the local community in a bit of a quandary again, if it were a good site in a good location reasonably well designed and so on they might want to oppose impose operating conditions no weekend dumping and so on they might want to impose additional monitoring requirements. One of the things I've suggested is that the developer be asked to provide some money up front to train a few local volunteers to do some leachate monitoring so that we're not they're not always relying on some Outsider to do it, but they have a participatory role after the facility is there you might then get some communities willing to Play that role along with the taxes were talking about a large facility paying something on the order of a million dollars per year in tax is some communities find that (00:44:01) attractive has any Community said I will do it for the dough (00:44:05) with a new facility. Probably not in any explicit way. There are communities that have been faced with a referendum on closing down a dump site of thinking of a case in Southern California a year or two ago where a community had two items on a ballot California uses a lot of initiative balance once said, we hereby close the facility or legal language to that effect and to we hereby raise our taxes in town by a million dollars in order to make up the deficit from closing the facility and they in fact voted by a narrow margin to keep that facility operating but that was faced with a choice. That's right there between opportunity cost of real car with its West Covina. (00:44:41) What's going to be cake that's right. That's the number one air pollution problem in the yellow Valley (00:44:47) larger than automobiles. Yes. (00:44:48) Well not not lodging the Automobiles but the number-one single Source. Well, could you imagine a situation where you have a newer clicks a in New Jersey that is would really love to have the money that would maybe even invite such a facility in (00:45:02) the mayor of Newark and some of the Newark city council a year or two ago. At least I've lost touch with it but a year or two ago. We're lobbying very hard for a facility in Newark. That's right. They were also encountering some opposition from the residents of that part of Newark who would have been the host see when you're dealing with a large city. Then you have distinctions within that City between the residents of the city as a whole and the immediate Community the four or five streets around the proposed site in Newark. The city was arguing for and presumably still is arguing for these facilities in Newark because it has serious financial problems and local residents of a community. I think was called Ironbound in Newark where opposing a facility and so you were seeing tensions with in Newark (00:45:42) Public, but I think the local citizens held held when the day. (00:45:49) I guess as at this point, nothing has been approved. But these things take a long time. I think as far as I know that proposal is still pending. (00:45:55) Okay, if one more question over on the left side there seems to be a contradiction (00:46:01) at first you say that the expense of waste processing is really (00:46:05) astronomical of that state-of-the-art Technologic processing and fixation and burial of fixated residual is very expensive. Then you say five cents per pair of pants. Let me straighten that out it is it may very well be several times more the cost per unit of ways to dispose of dispose of it adequately rather Negley. But even at that cost it's still a very small percentage of the cost of doing business for the company. However, isn't it true that many of these businesses are that is people who are in the business of processing hazardous waste are not making any money are operating at well below capacitors except for the landfills, but landfills are doing very well the dose the incinerators are going hungry. The carrier number of places are going (00:46:49) hungry a number of these treatment Technologies. You do find Capital going into them. Now you find Investments of 2 million 6 million eight million dollars moving now in the modern era back into this kind of technology and they believe obviously that they can make a (00:47:01) profit shortly before I came out here. I talk to the representative of the hazardous waste treatment Council, which is a trade Association which represents those people who treat hazardous waste by means other than by dumping. Yeah and what he told me if they can't get the federal government to stop allowing this cheap dumping. They're just going to have to stop the investing. They can't afford to continue to invest in building high technology chemical treatment and incinerator plans. So long as the government allows cheap dumping to compete with them. And what was the answer to the question about criminal prosecution? Little bit but is there a lot of (00:47:34) is the evidence rules are extremely difficult with respect to midnight dumping. It requires essentially infrared film. It requires a great deal of evidence that shows the person in the act of dumping that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that those are the toxic waste that the enforcement agency says they are when it's done illegally into the sewers when a when a small amount of waste is putting a green garbage bag and the regular Municipal garbage man picks it up and lo and behold it ends up in the wrong kind of a land disposal facility. It's very hard to prosecute later. But let's put something in perspective. The amount of (00:48:09) illegal dumping is miniscule compared to the amount of perfectly legal dumping that has to be cleaned up with the cost of billions of dollars. Most cleanup costs most Superfund costs for cleaning up past dumping is not going to the illegal dumper. It's going to the guys who operated perfectly legal facilities licensed by the state advertise in the Yellow Pages and paying income tax. (00:48:33) The bulk of where the Superfund money is going. I would agree with that. Certainly what the Superfund money is going on the other hand. We are seeing them the number of states a growing amount of illegal dumping part of the problem is who you ask when you ask the illegal dumper. He doesn't come forward with with a manifest. I don't know you're finding a much more rapid illegal dumping with the implementation of what poor rules. We (00:48:52) do. I don't think so. I think what you're finding is more enforcement activity, which is uncovering illegal dumping. I don't think the amount of illegal dumping is going up I think is going way down. I (00:49:00) talked to waste haulers for example who tell me a year ago. They showed up at mr. Smith's chemical processing firm a small firm and they had four barrels of waste to take away that month. Now it looks as if the facility is doing all of the things that did last year and they knock on the door and since the prices are now up golly. Mr. Smith doesn't have any waste anymore and I find waste hauler after waste hauler tells me the story. I find it's not only a problem of enforcement. It's a problem that illegal dumping is going up up up the people who run the sewers tell me this the people who run the municipal garbage dumps tell me they're finding much more when they randomly sample a garbage truck. Much more in the way of chemical waste in there than they (00:49:34) used one. Very last question. Are these are these businesses they the dumpsites businesses. (00:49:39) Are they going out of (00:49:40) business or no? No, there's not much a lot of diversity PA and they're doing a booming business. So they're healthy and remind buy their stock by the way. All right on that note. It is time for the rebuttals. This is two minutes that each side has to finish up and dr. David and Burrell will go first that we agreed right and he goes for the position that local government or he's against the position to local government should have the right to veto hazardous waste dump sites. That's right as we've discussed through the (00:50:12) past hour. I am arguing that local governments need to have a full and open debate over this issue. They need to have a full and complete decision, but that a secondary State override may be necessary in order to locate enough of the right kinds of facilities in the right places. Maybe not on the cheapest land. Maybe not where the mayor is a member of the right country. But in the right locations where the state's interest can be reflected where the interest of the citizens as a whole the whole constituency can be represented in that final decision. I think this is the only long-term environmentally sound answer to the problem of illegal dumping to the problem of excessive waste generation to the problem of cleaning up sites that have been improperly built and improperly located over the past that this Legacy of the past that need somehow to be cleaned up what you find. Otherwise is that rampant local parochial local parochialism will not allow these needed facilities to be located in the best locations and they will be located then in places where they are unsound less suitable where for some reason or another you can weasel yourself into a permit and it may not be the right location and we may be much more at risk or you will find much more in the way of illegal disposal. I think that this local decision-making process followed by where necessary Override can work very well can encourage a number of local communities to in fact make affirmative decisions on needed facilities and that in addition it will provide the proper forum for negotiation between the developer and the host community in order to ensure that we've done the very best job. We can of allocating the some benefits to that Community which is being asked to host this facility with its will willingly or in a few cases. Perhaps against its will and negotiated compensation can help in this regard. We need to deal that in finally with the issue of the majority of all of us as well as with narrowly defined minorities in an (00:52:11) exclusionary load. That was the only first gong. I was planning to ask William said you are two minutes Suppose. There were an airplane company that had a long history of building airplanes that always crashed and suppose the manufacture of those airplanes say, hey, I've got a brand new airplane state-of-the-art high technology guaranteed not to crash and suppose you found out that no insurance company will ensure that airplane and suppose you found out that the manufacturer that airplane had been lobbying in Congress for years to get a bill passed that in case of airplane does crash the manufacturer won't be held liable for it and suppose you further found out that some of these new high technology airplanes had (00:52:53) already found and found to have cracks (00:52:55) in them. Would you fly the airplane? Well, the man you had the people who build hazardous waste landfills have a long history of building landfills that I've always failed and I've always poison the community now, they're coming around and saying hey, we got these new high technologies that be do landfills and their touts and the government are saying the same sort of thing, but it turns out that no insurance company will issue long-term liability insurance to these landfills The Operators and owners of those landfills Lobby Congress for years to get a bill passed that would remove their liability. And in fact Professor morels own colleague in Princeton in investigating the newest most high technology landfills in New Jersey found that they were (00:53:37) leaking, Now, can you expect any Community to (00:53:41) have these things in their backyards under those circumstances? I think it's a whole idea is ridiculous. So thank you both. Let me review who you were. Although you will go on living your lives presumably for is it in the years to come? Yes, they'll be a gentleman last spoke was William Sandra. He is technical advisor to the citizens Clearinghouse on hazardous waste and I assume is available to speak at your local town or whatever contact the citizens Clearinghouse Lois Gibbs at Arlington, Virginia. He's also during the daytime the chief of hazardous waste implementation, which is a branch of the Environmental Protection Association and agency in Washington. And dr. David morale is a professor at Princeton University associated with the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. The author of a book called hazardous waste no sighting hazardous waste facilities local opposition in the myth of preemption published by Ballinger, press in 1982. The topic has been the question of who should decide the hazardous waste question. Should it be left up to the local citizens local citizenry or should this decisions of the local citizenry be overruled by some higher authority to get the state or the federal government help you. Think about that problem and thank you for listening and for watching.