The Poisoning of America

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After the Love Canal and New Jersey headlines, an ABC News-Harris poll found that 76% of those surveyed consider the dumping of toxic chemicals "a very serious problem," and despite a growing antagonism toward Government regulation, 93.6% wanted "federal standards prohibiting such dumping made much more strict than they are now." Is the public unduly alarmed? Federal officials charged with enforcing the long-inadequate laws against unsafe disposal practices do not think so. Declares Dale Bryson, an EPA deputy chief in the Midwest: "Every time we go into these cases, we find it's worse than we thought." Some Dantesque examples:

ELIZABETH, N.J.

On a small peninsula between New Jersey and Staten Island, the charred remains of what had been a collection of about 50,000 drums, some stacked four high, adjoin a brick-and-steel building once owned by the now bankrupt Chemical Control Corp. The containers had been left to rot for nearly a decade. Many of the drums had never been properly labeled; others were so seared by the explosive fire in April that neither the manufacturer nor the nature of the chemicals they contain can be determined from outside markings. Some barrels are leaking unidentified chemicals into the ground. Unknown wastes seep into an adjacent stream called the Arthur Kill and eventually ooze into the Hudson River. A huge tank holds a fluid laced with 4,000 parts per million of PCB, a chemical that has been linked to birth defects and nervous disorders. Explains George Weiss, coordinator of the cleanup from New Jersey's department of environmental protection: "No one knows what to do with that. No one even knows if we can touch it."

Wearing a respirator and a suit like an astronaut's to seal out fumes, the operator of a front-loader cautiously picks up one drum at a time. He is well aware of the fate of a bulldozer driver who hit a container of flammable phosphorus at a landfill in nearby Edison, N.J.: the man was incinerated so quickly that he died with his hand on his gearshift. State officials have identified a horrific arsenal of chemicals at the site, including two containers of nitroglycerine; two canisters of a chemical similar in effect to mustard gas; barrels full of biological agents; cylinders of phosgene and pyrophoric gases, which are so volatile they ignite when exposed to air; wastes contaminated by lead, mercury and arsenic; plus a variety of solvents, pesticides, plasticizers, including dangerous vinyl chloride and even picric acid, which has more explosive power than TNT.

Toxic wastes are trucked to New Jersey's single licensed toxic-waste incinerator in Logan Township, where the chemicals are burned at more than 5000° F. After months of work, an 80-man crew has removed all but 700 drums from the site. Once the barrels are all gone, metal detectors and aerial photography will be used to uncover evidence of any additional buried wastes. The contaminated topsoil must be hauled away. Probing for possible poisoning of the underlying water will come later.