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Hazardous Waste: Evolution of a National Environmental Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Travis Wagner
Travis Wagner
Affiliation:
University of Southern Maine
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Extract

The evolution of hazardous waste into a national environmental problem is a puzzling phenomenon. The public and media perceive hazardous waste to be a major environmental and public health risk. Yet, although the problem of hazardous waste and its resultant contamination has long been known, no one took it seriously until about 1978. An interesting question is, Why did the public and media ignore hazardous waste for so long, particularly during a period of unprecedented public and media interest in the environment, especially pollution, in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s?

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 306 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2004

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References

Notes

1. NBC News, Tuesday, 18 August 1970.

2. Davies, J. Clarence III, The Politics of Pollution (Indianapolis, 1970)Google Scholar.

3. In 1987, an EPA special task force released its report, “Unfinished Business: A Comparative Assessment of Environmental Problems.” It found that hazardous waste disposal presented a relatively low risk to public health and the environment. But it also found that the public viewed the risks quite differently and was a major determinant in the EPA's priorities. In 1990, the EPA's Science Advisory Board released a report, “Reducing Risk: Setting Priorities and Strategies for Environmental Protection,” which agreed with the previous EPA analysis about the relative risk of hazardous waste disposal and concluded similarly that the public perception of risk was driving EPA activity.

4. See, for example, Mazur, Alan, “Controversial Technologies in the Mass Media,” in Kraft, Michael E. and Vig, Norman J., eds., Technology and Politics (Durham, 1988), 140–158Google Scholar.

5. See, for example, Colton, Craig E. and Skinner, Peter N., The Road to Love Canal: Managing Industrial Waste before EPA (Austin, 1996)Google Scholar, and Brown, Halina Szejnwald, Cook, Brian J, Krueger, Robert, and Shatkin, Jo Anne, “Reassessing the History of U.S. Hazardous Waste Disposal Policy—Problem Definition, Expert Knowledge, and Agenda-Setting,” Risk 8 (1997): 247Google Scholar.

6. Colton and Skinner, The Road to Love Canal.

7. Based on a search of the Library of Congress catalog and WorldCat, the first document title to contain the term “hazardous waste” was a report published by the Manufacturing Chemist's Association in 1961 (“Recommended Safe Practices and Procedures: Disposal of Hazardous Waste,” Safety Guide SG-9). However, this appears to be an anomaly as the next document containing the term “hazardous waste” did not appear again until 1970 (“Selected Problems of Hazardous Waste Management in California: Report of the Hazardous Wastes Working Group of the Governor's Task Force on Solid Waste Management,” 2 January 1970). In addition, one reference was found in 1971, two in 1972, and, finally, in the EPA's Report to Congress in 1973. The infrequent use of the term “hazardous waste” continued until 1978, the year of Love Canal. Searching Vanderbilt University's Television News Archive and the New York Times index also revealed no references to hazardous waste during the 1960s and 1970s.

8. President's Science Advisory Committee, Environmental Pollution Panel, “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment” (November 1965), 135.

9. A Legislative History of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as Amended, 92d Cong., 2d sess. (October 1974), 259.

10. Although the public health effects, primarily disease vectors, were well known, intentional and unintentional burning of solid waste was becoming a concern, especially since the federal government's intervention into pollution control focused on air pollution. See National Academy of Sciences, Waste Management and Control (Washington, D.C., 1966)Google Scholar, “The Clean Air Act Amendments and Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 (PL-89–272),” Health, Education & Welfare Indicators, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C., 11 1965, 10Google Scholar.

11. National Academy of Sciences, Waste Management and Control.

12. Ibid., 476.

13. A Legislative History of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as Amended, 471.

14. The Solid Waste Disposal Act, Section 202(a).

15. Ibid., Section 203.

16. Ibid., Section 202(b).

17. Erskine, Hazel, “The Polls: Pollution and Its Costs,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 36, no. 1 (Spring 1972): 120Google Scholar.

18. Stanford University, Mass Media and the Environment: Volume II, The Environmental Information Explosion: The Press Discovers the Environment (09 1971), 19Google Scholar.

19. Murch, Arvin W., “Public Concern for Environmental Pollution,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 100Google Scholar.

20. Ibid., 120–35.

21. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (P. L. 91–190) was signed into law by President Nixon on 1 January 1970. President Nixon's State of the Union Message was delivered on 22 January. President Nixon created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on 9 July 1970, under Organizational Plan Number 3. The Council on Environmental Quality was created by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

22. “Ocean Disposal of Unserviceable Chemical Munitions,” Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Oceanography of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, 91st Cong., 3, 4, 6, 7 August 1970, 2–3.

23. Ibid.

24. Lyons, Richard D., “Nerve Gas Move Is Barred Till Judge Hears All Views,” New York Times, 14 08 1970, 1Google Scholar.

25. Lyons, Richard D., “Nerve Gas Trains Will Cross 7 States,” New York Times, 31 07 1970, 41Google Scholar.

26. Interestingly, roughly the same amount of nerve gas in unserviceable rockets was dumped off the coast of New Jersey in 1967 and 1968, but it was not reported. According to Lawless, Edward W., in Technology and Social Shock (New Brunswick, 1977)Google Scholar, the Army's nerve gas disposal program was secret, but a Pentagon source leaked information regarding the activity in May 1969 to Representative Richard McCarthy (D-N.Y.). Following this leak and a series of events, the mass media focused on the story in the summer of 1970. See also “Ocean Disposal of Unserviceable Chemical Munitions,” 10. As noted by Brigadier General W. W. Stone Jr., in reference to operation CHASE, ocean dumping was “the standard means for a number of years for the disposition of ammunition of all types, including chemical ammunition.” “Dumping of Nerve Gas Rockets in the Ocean,” Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, 91st Cong., 5 August 1970, 90.

27. The greatest public outcry and concern resulted from the transportation of the nerve gas through the many communities on the way to the Sunny Point Military Terminal.

28. Some of the stories that precipitated the disposal event focused on the transportation of nerve gas from Okinawa to the United States for disposal.

29. Serious consideration was given to destroying the nerve gas by underground nuclear detonation. However, preparation of the detonation would take too long given the structural condition of the munitions. See “Ocean Disposal of Unserviceable Chemical Munitions,” 10–17, and “Dumping of Nerve Gas Rockets in the Ocean.”

30. Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2d ed. (New York, 1995), 98Google Scholar.

31. Resource Recovery Act of 1970: Report of the Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, to accompany S. 2005, Together with an Individual View, 91st Cong., 2d sess., 23 July 1970, 16–17.

32. P.L. 91–512.

33. Certainly the variety of terms used to describe waste added to the inability to clearly construct the meaning of hazardous waste. Throughout the twentieth century, the terms “trade wastes,” “industrial wastes,” “chemical wastes,” “refuse,” “industrial solid waste,” “toxic industrial waste,” “hazardous materials,” “dangerous materials,” and “hazardous substances” were all interchangeably used to refer to wastes of special concern.

34. Council on Environmental Quality, “Ocean Dumping: A National Policy,” October 1970.

35. Ibid., v.

36. Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1971: Report to the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, to accompany H.R. 9727, 92d Cong., 1st sess., 17 July 1971, 11.

37. Downs, Anthony, “Up and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue Attention Cycle,’” Public Interest 28 (1972): 38–50Google Scholar.

38. Dunlap, Riley E., 1995. “Public Opinion and Environmental Policy,” in Lester, James P., ed., Environmental Politics and Policy: Theories and Evidence, 2d ed. (Durham, 1995)Google Scholar.

39. This legislation was intended to be Title III to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972.

40. Council on Environmental Quality, The President's 1972 Environmental Program (03 1972), 18Google Scholar.

41. Epstein, Samuel S., Brown, Lester O., and Pope, Carl, Hazardous Waste in America (San Francisco, 1982), 186–187Google Scholar.

42. Ibid. 187.

43. Ibid.

44. Kenworthy, E. W., “Bills by Nixon and Muskie on Waste Differ Sharply,” New York Times, 5 02 1973, 32Google Scholar.

45. “EPA to Shift Program Emphasis to Hazardous Waste Regulation,” Environmental Reporter, Bureau of National Affairs (March 1973), 1310.

46. A Legislative History of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as Amended, 47.

47. Ibid., 49.

48. Kovacs, William L. and Klucsik, John F., “The New Federal Role in Solid Waste Management: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976,” Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 3 (1977): 216Google Scholar.

49. U.S. EPA, Disposal of Hazardous Wastes: Report to Congress by the Environmental Protection Agency Pursuant to Section 212 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as Amended (06 1974), ixGoogle Scholar.

50. Ibid., 15.

51. Ibid.

52. Disposal of Hazardous Wastes: Report to Congress, 8.

53. H.R. Report No. 94–1491, 94th Cong., 2d sess. (9 September 1976), 12.

54. Epstein, Brown, and Pope, Hazardous Waste in America, 186–87.

55. Ibid., 189.

56. Ibid.

57. “The New Federal Role in Solid Waste Management: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976,” 217.

58. Federal Register, 40 FR 42993, 17 September 1975.

59. The speakers and their positions regarding national hazardous waste legislation were obtained from 1975 Public Meetings on Hazardous Waste Management: Proceedings, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1976. See also Landy, Mark K., Roberts, Marc J., and Thomas, Stephen R., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions (New York, 1990), 91Google Scholar, regarding industry's lobbying efforts for a national program.

60. Ibid.

61. Epstein, Brown, and Pope, Hazardous Waste in America, 191.

62. Ibid.

63. H.R. Report No. 94–1491, 94th Cong., 2d sess. (9 September 1976), 3.

64. Ibid., 4.

65. The bill H.R. 14496 was approved and combined with another solid waste bill, H.R. 14965, which focused on research, development, and demonstration projects for resource recovery.

66. Landy et al., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions, 92.

67. Kovacs and Klucsik, “The New Federal Role in Solid Waste Management,” 219–20.

68. Ibid., 220.

69. “Also on Capitol Hill,” Washington Post, 1 October 1976, A3.

70. “Toxic Substances Bill Becomes Law,” EDF Newsletter 7, no. 5 (09 1976)Google Scholar.

71. The Sierra Club publishes The Sierra Club Bulletin and the Natural Resources Defense Council publishes Amicus.

72. Blake Early, personal communication, 25 November 1998, email in response to questions regarding environmental lobbying at RCRA.

73. Ibid.

74. TSCA, signed into law on 11 October 1976, provided EPA with the authority to control a chemical substance presenting an unreasonable risk at any point in its life cycle, including its manufacture, importation, processing, disposal, distribution, use, and disposal. Thus, theoretically, TSCA could control toxic substances before they became toxic (hazardous) wastes.

75. Landy et al., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions, 102.

76. Ibid.

77. The Love Canal, an abandoned clay-lined ditch, was the remnants of an attempt to build a canal in Niagara Falls, New York. The old canal was used as a hazardous waste disposal site by Hooker Chemical Company from 1942 to 1952. In 1953, the company transferred the parcel of land containing the canal to the city's Board of Education for construction of a school and playground. Between 1953 and 1960, a school, playground, streets, sewer lines, and utility lines were constructed crossing and parallel to the canal. This infrastructure supported the construction of single-family homes throughout the area, some with yards abutting the canal. The canal's structural integrity, caused by years of construction, coupled with heavier-than-normal precipitation in 1976–77, weakened and its contents overflowed and seeped into adjacent basements and rose to the surface.

In response to citizen complaints, the EPA and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation began sampling affected homes in early 1978. Results from these and subsequent sampling events confirmed the presence of toxic and carcinogenic substances (e.g., dioxin and benzene) in homes abutting the canal. The EPA and the New York State Department of Health began to express concerns publicly for the health of the homeowners. See Mazur, Alan, A Hazardous Inquiry: The Rashomon Effect at Love Canal (Cambridge, Mass., 1998)Google Scholar.

78. Ibid., 14.

79. Mazur, “Controversial Technologies in the Mass Media,” 143.

80. Landy et al., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions, 103.

81. Mazur, A Hazardous Inquiry, 106.

82. Landy et al., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions, 135.

83. Phlen, Steffen W., “RCRA: A Personal Perspective,” The Environmental Professional 3 (1981): 19Google Scholar.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. Mazur, A Hazardous Inquiry, 81.

87. Mazur, “Controversial Technologies in the Mass Media,” 145.

88. Mazur, A Hazardous Inquiry, 137.

89. Ibid., 146.

90. Landy et al., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions, 138.

91. Ibid., 155.

92. New York Times, 30 April 1980, B6.

93. Landy et al., The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions, 120.

94. This of course does not include the hundreds of thousands of additional pages required to (a) explain the regulations in preambles to the regulations in the Federal Register, (b) interpret the regulations through policy memoranda and directives, and (c) explain further in guidance manuals the regulatory requirements and additional interpretations.

95. Dunlap, Riley E., “Public Opinion: Behind the Transformation,” EPA Journal (07–08 1985): 17Google Scholar.

96. Dunlap, Riley E., “Trends in Public Opinion Toward Environmental Issues: 1965–1990,” in American Environmentalism: The U.S. Environmental Movement, 1970–1990 (New York, 1992), 111Google Scholar.