Browner won't touch Times Beach

[Cdstelzer@aol.com]

KEEPING A SAFE DISTANCE

Last year, EPA boss Carol Browner withdrew from
decision-making about Times Beach. Meanwhile, inquiries
about the dioxin incinerator continue to rage

BY C.D. STELZER

first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Sept. 11, 1996

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)administrator Carol M.
Browner has withdrawn from all decision-making responsibilities
concerning the Times Beach cleanup, The Riverfront Times has
learned. 

Browner recused herself from addressing any aspects of the controversial
Superfund
project in an internal agency memorandum dated April 5, 1995. The
administrator's
office in Washington, D.C. provided the RFT with a copy of Browner's
statement
last week upon request.

The recusal statement does not specify why Browner bowed out of the case. An
EPA
spokeswoman now says Browner relinquished oversight because the
administrator's
sister works for the corporation liable for the cleanup. Michelle Browner,
the EPA
chief's sibling, is a research scientist for Roche Bio-Science in Palo Alto,
Calif.
Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical conglomerate, purchased Syntex Corp. in 1994.
Syntex, the responsible party, must burn the dioxin-contaminated soil at
Times
Beach and 26 other sites in Eastern Missouri, according to the to the 1990
federal
consent decree with the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources
(DNR). A subsidiary of Syntex, Agribusiness Technologies Inc., is carrying
out the
plan.

News of Browner's withdrawal follows the initiation of a DNR inquiry into
whether
stack emissions samples were handled properly last November, after a trial
burn at
the Times Beach dioxin incinerator near Eureka. Earlier this year, the DNR
issued a
permit for the burner based in part on the results of those tests. Opponents
of the
incinerator, including the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG), raised concerns
last
month about a potential conflict of interest, after they discovered
International
Technology Corp. (IT), the incinerator operator, partially owns Quanterra
Environmental Services, the lab that handled the samples (Twice Burned, the
RFT,
Aug. 28) . 

"I am aware of the allegations by TBAG, and we are checking on those
allegations,"
says DNR director David Shorr. "I don't believe there were any shenanigans
here.
The only question that I am looking into is whether there was a prospect of a
breach
in the chain of custody (of the stack emissions samples). ... It's not that
we believe
that there was a breach in the chain of custody, but we've have had that
inquiry made
to us."
Shorr expresses equal confidence in Browner's hands-off policy. "I am not
aware of
her ever being involved in Times Beach during her tenure," says Shorr. "She
has
properly recused herself. All decisions from EPA, at least that we have had,
have
been through either Elliott Laws, the assistant administrator for waste or
deputy
(administrator) Fred Hansen."

Martha Steincamp, chief counsel for Region VII of the EPA in Kansas City,
views
Browner's recusal as insignificant. "Frankly, there have been no decisions
that
would be made at the administrator's level on this case, anyway," says
Steincamp.
"The decisions are made out here in the Region. 

"The really important thing to remember is this is what one does, when one
wants to
take one's self out of the decision making process -- you recuse yourself,"
says
Steincamp. "She didn't consult with me when she did it. Until you told me, I
didn't
know that it was her sister or what this person's name was. That's not what I
need to
know to do my job. What I need to know to do my job is don't go looking to
Carol
Browner on decision making on Times Beach."

The EPA administrator, however, does wield statutory power over the Times
Beach
Superfund project. According to the consent decree: 

EPA shall review the remedial action at the Facilities at least every five
(5) years after
the entry of this Decree to assure that human health and the environment are
being
protected by the remedial action being implemented. ... Settling Defendants
shall be
provided with an opportunity to confer with EPA on any response action
proposed
during the EPA's 5 year review process and to submit written comments for the
record during the public comment period. After the period for submission of
written
comments is closed, the Administrator shall, in writing, determine if further
response
action is appropriate. ...

In other words, the EPA could have reviewed the safety of the project and
implemented changes to the plan at any time since the 1990 decree was signed,
but
the agency was required to do so within five years. The decree mandates that
based
on that review the EPA administrator take appropriate steps to protect public
health
and the environment, if necessary. 

It didn't happen. The five-year deadline expired July 19, 1995. According to
the
EPA internal memo, Browner recused herself on April 5, 1995. 

Steincamp, whose signature appears on the consent decree, says the Times
Beach
agreement is superseded by a clause in the Superfund law, which requires that
the
"remedial action" (in this case incineration) be completed before the review
takes
place. 

A high-ranking official at EPA headquarters in Washington, on the other hand,
says
the Superfund provision means the Times Beach project can't be reviewed
because
the incinerator hasn't been operating for five years. The cleanups at Times
Beach and
other Eastern Missouri dioxin sites, however, have been going on for well
over five
years. 


The two interpretations of the law share one thing in common -- they thwart
any
review of the project until after the incineration is completed. Here is how
the
pertinent Superfund clause actually reads: 

If the President selects a remedial action that results in any hazardous
substances,
pollutants or contaminants remaining at the site, the President shall review
such
remedial action no less often than each 5 years after the initiation of such
remedial
action to assure that human health and the environment are being protected by
the
remedial action being implemented. ...

Hugh Kaufman, an EPA whistleblower, is candid in his opinion as to why
Browner
chose to distance herself from the project. "Well, Times Beach is getting hot
now,"
says Kaufman. "Carol Browner tries to find a reason to recuse herself from
any
sticky wicket case," he adds. "She did that with the WTI (Waste Technologies
Industries) incinerator. Apparently, her husband works for a group called
Citizen
Action, where she used to work. Citizen Action, at one time, ... signed a
letter
asking the state of Ohio to relook at this mess. ... The real reason she
recused herself
is because it's a big sticky wicket issue involving Jackson Stephens ... and
the
Clinton/Arkansas connection." 

Kaufman is referring to the WTI commercial hazardous waste incinerator in
East
Liverpool, Ohio. Stephens, who founded WTI in 1980, is a Little Rock
financier
who has padded the campaign coffers of both Republican and Democratic
presidential candidates in the past. Stephens and WTI have also been linked
to the
Union Bank of Switzerland, which has been implicated along with the CIA in
the
BCCI and Nugan-Hand banking scandals. The WTI incinerator was permitted to
operate even though it emitted despite unsafe levels of dioxin.

In 1983, Kaufman felt the heat from Times Beach himself. The whistleblower
then
appeared on the Phil Donahue TV talk show and alleged that U.S. Sen. John
Danforth (R-Mo.) had received a list of potential dioxin sites in Missouri,
while state
attorney general, and had failed to do anything about it. During that period,
Kaufman
was the EPA's chief hazardous waste investigator. His inquiry here led him to
suspect that Russell Bliss, the waste hauler responsible spreading the
dioxin, had
connections to the "power-elite culture" in Missouri. "When I raised the
issue of him
being part of the old boy network of which Danforth was a member, Danforth
screamed bloody murder," says Kaufman.

The current dilemma with the incinerator has parallels with the past,
according to
Kaufman. He compares the political and social climate in Missouri to a banana
republic. "Nothing changes, " he says. "Especially, when you've got Ralston
Purina
and Monsanto. You've got an elite club, and the disposal boys are a part of
that club.
It's like Arkansas -- you've got an aristocracy -- and then you've got
everybody
else."

Confirmation of Kaufman's jaded view can now be seen billowing from the
stacks at
the Times Beach dioxin incinerator, where state and federal regulators
continue to
turn a blind eye to an obvious public health risk. Studies by the EPA itself
indicate
dioxin is a probable human carcinogen and the cause of immunological and
reproductive problems. The agency also acknowledges that incineration is one
of the
means by which dioxin is created. 

Nevertheless, the EPA and DNR claim the Times Beach incinerator is safe.
These
assurances have continued despite a series of toxic releases at the
incinerator this
spring that bypassed pollution control devices and dispersed contaminants
into the
air. The odds of similar accidents occurring increased in July, when Syntex
pushed
back the completion date of the burn until next year because an estimated 70
tons of
additional dioxin-tainted dirt will need to be destroyed. 

Prior to firing up the incinerator, federal Judge John F. Nangle, the jurist
responsible
for the consent decree, ruled in the EPA's favor, outlawing a St. Louis
County
ordinance that would have required that stack emissions meet the agency's own
stringent standard of 99.9999 percent destruction efficiency.