Poisons That Won't Go Away

The EPA announces and proposes but is haunted by the past

William Ruckelshaus, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, laments that the nation seems caught up in a quest for the "chemical of the month." He was referring to once obscure substances, such as dioxin and PCB, that suddenly get catapulted into the public spotlight. Enter October's celebrity poison: EDB.

Scientists have known for a decade that ethylene dibromide, a pesticide and gasoline additive, is one of the most powerful known carcinogens. The bulk of the 300 million Ibs. the U.S. produces annually is used to keep leaded gasoline from fouling auto engines. Because the chemical is added at refineries in a closed system and breaks down during engine combustion, such use is considered safe enough. The danger comes from agricultural practice: growers inject it into citrus grove soils to control rootworms, and exporters fumigate some $29 million worth of fruit with it to meet foreign quarantine laws.

This summer the EPA learned that the chemical had contaminated water supplies in some communities in Florida, Georgia, California and Hawaii. And studies showed that traces of EDB in fruits and vegetables did not decay completely as had previously been thought. Last week, three years after the EPA first circulated draft rules governing the chemical, the EPA announced an emergency ban on soil injection of EDB, only the second such action in agency history, and moved to stop fumigation in 30 days. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also announced a new, stiffer exposure limit for the estimated 57,000 who risk breathing EDB on the job. Scientists at OSHA have concluded that the current standard is 200 times too high to protect workers from the chemical, one of the most dangerous the agency says it has ever regulated. But then David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, asked OSHA to withdraw its new standard, whose cost to U.S. industry is estimated to be $30 million. OMB asked for more time to study the economic impact of the rule.

At hearings of the House Government Operations Subcommittee, Democratic Representative Mike Synar of Oklahoma charged that John Todhunter, the former head of EPA'S pesticide program who was forced out earlier this year, had delayed regulating EDB as a favor to agribusinessmen. Synar brandished a letter Todhunter wrote in June 1982 to Florida Representative Andy Irelanda, in which the regulator argued the growers' side of the case, stating, "It is important to your state's citrus exporters that EDB not be phased out unless there is an alternative available." Todhunter dismissed Synar's evidence as proving nothing. Said he: "I signed 60 letters a day."

Other charges about EPA thundered from the Hill last week, the most serious against former EPA Administrator Anne Burford, who was testifying before another House subcommittee. She was confronted with a charge that 15 EPA officials had told congressional probers that they believed Burford was playing partisan politics last year when she delayed announcing a $6 million cleanup grant for California's Stringfellow acid pits. Burford denied the accusation. Her former chief of staff, John Daniel, testified that officials of the President's OMB pressured the EPA to consider industry costs before implementing regulations, even in cases where EPA is barred by law from weighing such considerations. Daniel also claimed that OMB forwarded some EPA-proposed regulations to industry groups before they were made public.

To refurbish EPA's standing, Ruckelshaus, who took over the agency last March, is urging the Reagan Administration to get quickly behind a new policy to control acid rain. Previously Reaganites have supported only "more study" of the subject. But Ruckelshaus has recommended a plan to reduce sulfur emissions by 4 million to 5 million tons a year, mainly in the Northeast. To comply with this proposal would cost between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.