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The town that haunts Al Gore | page 1, 2, 3, 4 Robert Indian, chief of community health assessment for the Ohio Department of Health, notes that a cancer mortality analysis from 1992-'96 showed East Liverpool with a much higher rate of cancer deaths (242.9 per 100,000) than the surrounding county (182.6), Ohio (182.9) and the United States (170.8). This, Indian says, was due to smoking and poor nutrition more than anything else. WTI, he says, "hasn't been there long enough to have played a role." Additionally, he says, "It's a state-of-the-art incinerator."
But the health problems of a poor community can often become a vicious circle when hazardous-waste incinerators are brought to the area to save it. After all, as David Ozonoff, chairman of the environmental health division of the Boston University School of Public Health, who has testified against WTI, notes, "They tend not to put incinerators like this in Grosse Point, Mich., or Chevy Chase, Md." A local surgeon, who asked not to be named, says that he doesn't think WTI is directly to blame for the high cancer rate, which predates its construction. But, he says, "If I had to guess, I would say that it has worsened conditions." There is anecdotal evidence, at the very least. The surgeon knows of three specific cases in the town of East Liverpool, with a population of fewer than 13,000, of male breast cancer -- a disease much rarer in the rest of the country. (About 1,600 cases of male breast cancer will be diagnosed, and 400 related deaths are projected, for the entire nation this year.) "I've been in town since the fall of 1991," says the surgeon. "When I went into practice, I remember my trainers telling me that generally a surgeon should see one, or at most two, cases of male breast cancers in his entire life. Well, I've seen three already." He says he has also seen examples of "very aggressive" breast cancers in women who are uncommonly young for the disease, in their late 20s or early 30s. Additionally, there are two unrelated little boys, both around 3 years old, who have had to have eyes removed because they suffered from retinoblastoma, or eye tumors, according to Ted Hill, a family practice physician, Swearingen's younger brother and an anti-WTI activist. "Retinoblastoma has an incidence of about one in every 13,000 to 14,000 births," says Hill, whose practice has treated one of the boys. "In a town of 13,000 people total, to have two of them with retinoblastoma, I'm sure that's significant. Though I'm also sure that the EPA would rationalize that away or find some justification for it." "One [incident] you can have," concurs Ozonoff. "But once you have more than one, then you have to start asking, 'How did that happen?'" Though Gore allies are quick to paint Swearingen as just another NIMBY-crying housewife -- and they now bar her from Gore's Ohio rallies -- there are plenty in the medical community who are willing to back up her emotions with scientific testimony. According to WTI itself, a worst-case accident at the incinerator could release 100,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the immediate area, threatening the population within four miles of the facility. When the $140 million plant was first proposed for the corner of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the early 1980s, locals rejoiced. "I used to be a supporter," says Alonzo Spencer, a 71-year-old retired steelworker whose wife taught at the school, which sits about three blocks from their home. "I thought it would increase our tax base, and provide additional jobs. Who could be against that?" WTI was to provide a $3.5 million payroll in addition to around $2 million in tax revenues -- and plenty of locals remain believers in WTI. Back then, health concerns were pooh-poohed. "Townspeople were told only water vapor and other innocuous emissions would exit the stack," reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Part of those "innocuous emissions" turned out to include acid gases like hydrogen chloride; potentially lethal, highly toxic contaminants known as dioxins; and metals like mercury, lead and chromium. Just months after WTI received its 1984 permit to begin building, Ohio passed a law requiring that any future incinerator be built a minimum distance of 2,000 feet from any home or place of business. WTI, however, was exempted under a grandfather clause, and it commenced building less than 400 feet from a home. WTI supporters like Spencer started hearing about the potentially harmful effects of WTI on the kids at the school. He started hearing that the location of East Liverpool was remarkably unsuited for a hazardous-waste incinerator. Under EPA guidelines for "incompatible land use," adopted years later in 1997, there would be at least four -- out of eight possible -- reasons why East Liverpool would probably not be an appropriate place for the incinerator. As Gore noted in '92, East Liverpool is located on a flood plain, meaning it's an area subject to a 1 percent or greater chance of flooding the incinerator and spreading toxins. Second, East Liverpool frequently experiences what are known as "temperature inversions," meaning the air higher in the atmosphere is often warmer than that close to the earth, which is uncommon. This means that instead of warm air rising -- like, say, smoke from a hazardous-waste incinerator -- it stays closer to the ground. Third, WTI also sits on the banks of the Ohio River, from which, downstream, thousands get their drinking water. Last, and most pressing, is the proximity of the students at East Elementary School. After all, as EPA's new guidelines instructed in 1997, "Sensitive populations such as the elderly, children and the sick are more affected by toxic exposures." Ozonoff notes, "The purpose of bringing hazardous wastes into the plant is to eliminate them. But in actuality, some of them -- like metals -- you can't eliminate." The volume of the mercury and lead is reduced, he says, but it either joins "the ash in the incinerator or goes up the chimney. Those are the only two places it can go." And this is in a best-case scenario. What if there were a mishap? Within the first year of its operation, after all, WTI reported excess emissions from what it was permitted to release under EPA regulations, including hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. The plan at the school in case of an emergency -- and the EPA identified more than 25 such possible accident scenarios -- is that all the kids be herded into the cafeteria. In a segment on CBS's "60 Minutes" from 1994, correspondent Steve Croft asked school superintendent Tom Ash what the next step of this plan would be. "After we have them in there [the cafeteria], to try to seal it as tightly as we possibly can," Ash said. "With what?" Croft asked. "Close the doors; you'd use duct tape, I suppose, on the outside -- anything you can possibly do."
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