Back to the Table of Contents Page

Back to the Voice Home Page

Classifieds

Publication Date: Friday, May 16, 2003

Not in our backyard

By Julie O'Shea

Pollution that Mountain View residents have successfully fought to keep out of their air is now on its way to Arizona. And when it gets there, it will be turned into something more dangerous that could be breathed by an impoverished Native American community.

For nearly a decade, systems designed to filter a cancer-causing solvent out of local ground water pumped the chemical directly into Mountain View's air.

After residents opposed this system -- and after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last year that the main chemical, trichloroethene (TCE) is far more dangerous than previously thought -- those responsible for cleaning numerous local Superfund sites agreed to end the toxic emissions by installing carbon filters that trap TCE and keep it from seeping into the air.

While this may be a victory for Mountain View, the toxins kept out of local air are headed for an obscure group of Native Americans in a corner of the Arizona desert.

The carbon filters that keep Mountain View's air safe will be superheated at the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation, near Lake Havasu; their toxic emissions will be released into the air. According to experts at the EPA, when TCE is burned it creates dioxins, among of the most harmful chemicals known to man.

USFilter/Westates -- the company responsible for processing some of the nation's most hazardous waste -- has been running its operation on the Parker, Ariz. reservation for more than a decade.

The facility "reactivates" the granular carbon used to filter toxins from water and air by heating until everything but the carbon itself burns off. The carbon is then recycled for use in new filters.

While the heating process destroys much of the contamination, some escapes. And because the reservation is not subject to state or local environmental laws, only the EPA has the power to assess its safety and regulate it actions.

Tribal opposition

Dave Harper, a tribal community member who lives on the reservation, claims that the Westates facility is endangering the health of residents; he has been trying for years to shut it down, but says his pleas have so far been futile.

Harper said the EPA is ignoring his concerns, and that the reservation's tribal council is quietly walking away from the debate out of fear of being sued by Westates. But EPA officials maintain they are doing everything in their power to ensure that the facility is safe.

If Westates had taken up residency in Mountain View, Harper said, the fight to close its doors would have been a vocal one, fought in the media and before boards and councils.

The company would have never lasted long on a temporary permit had it situated itself in an affluent, predominantly white city, he added.

"That's where we talk about environmental injustice, environmental racism," he said.

"The tribe doesn't want to be sued. That's their biggest fear. What happens to the tribe happens to all of us."

The reservation, established in 1865, is home to members of the Mojave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo tribes.

Money questions

In 1990, the tribal council approved a 20-year lease for Westates. It is unclear how much money the tribes are getting out of the deal; Westates refuses to say, and tribal leaders have not returned repeated phone calls from the Voice. But environmental activists who have been keeping close tabs on the happenings in Parker say the amount is minimal; Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network estimates somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000 a year in rent. According to the USFilter Web site, the company reported $4.2 billion in sales for North America in 2001. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) -- the federal agency that works with reservations -- said it doesn't have the lease information on file. "But even if we did, I wouldn't give it to you. It's a financial matter and considered confidential," said Amy Heuslein, an environmental protection officer with the bureau.

"How did the tribe approve the lease in the first place? Somewhere I think the BIA dropped the ball by not making sure there was a significant environmental study done," he added. "They're not doing their job, and they're allowing these types of developments to come into Indian country."

But Heuslein said the bureau did indeed oversee the approval process of the Westates facility in 1990.

"No one saw a red flag, and still it hasn't been proven that there are any red flags," said Heuslein, before adding that her office does recognize "there are concerns out there," but they haven't been very vocal.
Permit questions

A subsidiary of French multinational Vivendi and one of only six carbon reactivation plants in the country, Westates has some high-profile clients, including Hewlett Packard, the NASA Kennedy Space Center and the U.S. EPA.

In the next 12 weeks or so, Westates will start burning up waste carted in from one of Mountain View's largest Superfund sites: the area bounded by Middlefield Road, Ellis Street and Whisman Road (called MEW). But MEW isn't the city's first site to send its pollution to Parker.

Spectra Physics, a federal cleanup site on West Middlefield Road, has sent its waste to Westates in the past. The Spectra Physics cleanup is being overseen by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Harper, critical of EPA's review of the Westates facility, hopes to overturn the permit process, but admits that the fight will be a hard one.

"They always approve permits," Harper said.

Federal agents should have put Westates under a microscope a decade ago, he added.

"I think that is a fair criticism we receive from advocates," said Patrick Wilson, a senior toxicologist who works out of EPA's San Francisco office. But based on air tests conducted by Westates in 1993, 1994 and 2000, there is no reason to think residents are facing health risks, Wilson added, stressing that risk is based on exposure levels.

However, it is not clear what is actually coming out of Westates' stacks; the only tests have been performed by the company's own personnel, and have never been verified independently by the EPA.

The EPA "cannot confirm the accuracy of the test results," said Karen Scheuermann, the EPA project manager overseeing Westates' permit review.

And while Westates' data show that the amounts of toxins are low, many are hazardous to the point that environmental health advocates say no level is safe.

The EPA is now overseeing air tests conducted at the Parker facility; Scheuermann said the agency "will probably never do our own testing at Westates."

Dispute between environmentalists, company

But critics say the agency's efforts are too late.

"U.S. EPA has been not only missing in action but has been negligent in enforcing the federal government's laws," said Bradley Angel, director of the San Francisco advocacy group Greenaction.

"We think there have been improprieties since day one," Angel said. "And EPA has continued to ignore them."

Westates spokesperson Suzanne Pfister said nearly 50 percent of the emissions escaping the facility's smoke stack is water vapor, while another 40 percent is nitrogen. The other 10 percent is made up mostly of oxygen and carbon dioxide with .004 percent being "impurities," dioxin included. These impurities include up to 7.5 pounds of lead annually, as well as carbon monoxide and other toxics (see sidebar).

Assuming the furnace is running 365 days a year, EPA -- based on Westates' data -- estimates that .00006 pounds of dioxins and furans are emitted from Westates' smoke stakes on an annual basis. EPA also doubled the emission estimates to reflect the double capacity of the facility's new furnace.

Pfister said the levels of dioxin released into the air are so minimal, she likens them to exhaust from "a couple of tractor trailers moving down the highway."

These emissions are 12 times lower than EPA's current restrictions, and Westates' equipment gets rid of nearly all of the pollutants, Pfister said. But environmental health advocates argue that any dioxin at all is too much.

Wilson, the EPA toxicologist, said the Westates is "not going to get rid of all the TCE," adding that "what goes out is what goes in."

And activists like Goldtooth call Pfister's tractor trailer analogy laughable.

"The industry says there is no risk -- that's just hogwash," Goldtooth said. "Even minute releases of dioxins (are) dangerous."

Lenny Siegel, director of the Mountain View-based Center for Public Environmental Oversight, agreed, saying dioxin even at the lowest levels is much worse than any other toxin.

Still, the EPA's Wilson, who is part of the team evaluating Westates' Parker facility for an air permit, stresses that EPA has not yet put its finger on the "dangerous factor."

The air has to be tested and studied and then, just like it did with TCE in November, EPA will determine the risk level and decide whether to issue Westates a permit, Wilson said.

"I think there is a smoking gun in this facility," Goldtooth said. "The tribes got ripped off."

On the legal margins?

Harper and Greenaction's Angel say that Westates has operated on the periphery of the law from the time it was built.

The facility's lease was approved in 1990 by the tribal council, shortly before the EPA tightened air pollution regulations in 1991. Because the company had already begun construction of its Parker facility, Westates was given grandfather rights, and has not been forced to comply with the newer, more stringent laws.

Thirteen years later, the plant is still operating under the less stringent safety guidelines which were done away with before it even opened.

Nonetheless, Westates spokesperson Pfister said the company had begun working toward getting a permit with the EPA almost since the day it won its land lease in 1990.

"It's quite clear that EPA has taken quite a long time to finish this," Pfister said.

EPA officials say the process is still about two years away from being complete. In the meantime, Westates can continue to operate its Parker plant.

In the coming months, EPA will oversee a trial burn at the site, Wilson said. And probes will be put into the facility's smoke stacks in an effort to measure the contaminants over a long period of time. But environmentalists say this comes too late.

"It raises some questions about what is called environmental injustice," Goldtooth said. "There has been serious inequality in government support for helping Indian communities.

Alternatives

Peter Strauss, an environmental scientist who has worked extensively on oversight of Mountain View contamination, says that with more money, those conducting local cleanups could eliminate much of the TCE headed for Westates.

Strauss pointed to a system in place at a Navy-run Moffett Field cleanup that pumps TCE-laced ground water into machinery that exposes it to bright light and hydrogen peroxide. The combination destroys much of the chemical, leaving small amounts to be disposed of.

If this type of system cannot be imlemented, Strauss says any alternative is better than exposing people to TCE or its byproducts.

"If I had my druthers, I'd rather see it put in a landfill," he said.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com