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Documentation:
"Al Gore's conscience" radio spot
WTI radio spot text:
Vice President Al Gore, this is your conscience speaking.
Where have you been the past eight years?
You broke a promise when you let the incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio continue to burn hazardous waste next to an elementary school, even after it failed its safety test. Because you broke your promise, schoolchildren are breathing lead, mercury and dioxin every day.
You're going to keep hearing from me until you make things right.
Paid for by Ohio Citizen Action, ohiocitizen.org.
Sources:
- You broke a promise when you let the incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio continue to burn hazardous waste …
"Serious questions concerning the safety of an East Liverpool, Ohio, hazardous waste incinerator must be answered before the plant may begin operation, Vice President-elect Al Gore said today, announcing that he and his colleagues...are asking the General Accounting Office for a full investigation. And, Gore said, the new Clinton-Gore administration would not issue the plant a test burn permit until those questions are answered.
"'For the safety and health of local residents rightfully concerned about the impact of this incinerator on their families and their future, a thorough investigation is urgently needed. Too many questions remain unanswered about the impact of this incinerator and the process by which it was approved,' said Gore."
— Office of the Vice President-elect, press release, December 7, 1992
January 8, 1993: the U.S. EPA issues a test burn permit for WTI.
"More than three months after Vice President-elect Al Gore vowed to block the opening of the nation’s newest hazardous-waste incinerator, the Clinton Administration said today that it would not oppose the owner’s plan to begin commercial operation of the plant, probably next month…
…But a top EPA official and several legal experts in and out of the agency said the Administration had the authority to lift the permit for testing as soon as it took office…"
— "Ohio Incinerator Cleared Over Objection by Gore," New York Times, March 18, 1993 - …next to an elementary school…
The Waste Technologies Industries (WTI) incinerator is 1,100 feet from East Elementary School. The school sits on a bluff slightly below the top of the incinerator’s stack. - …even after it failed its safety test.
"Regulators have again imposed restrictions on the hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, O., this time for excessive emissions of dioxin …
The action marks the third time that regulators, examining the results of a March test burn at the Waste Technologies Industries plant, determined that emissions were excessive.
They earlier found that the plant had spewed more than four times the allowable amount of mercury into the air and that it had failed to achieve the required 99.99% destruction rate of carbon tetrachloride."
— "WTI’s dioxin emissions found excessive by EPA," Plain Dealer, June 24, 1993 - Because you broke your promise, schoolchildren are breathing lead, mercury and dioxin every day.
WTI’s permitted emission limits for metals include 355 lbs./yr. for mercury and 254 lbs./yr. for lead, according to U.S. EPA Region V.
Also according to U.S. EPA Region V, there is an average dioxin/furan emission rate of 9.2 X 10-10 grams TEQ per second, as measured in the WTI stack over a 1-year period; ambient air sampling/analysis in and around East Liverpool from 1995 to 1997 measured background ranges of 0.04 – 0.095 pg/m³. -
For more information, see WTI background resources or contact Jennifer O'Donnell, Akron area program director, Ohio Citizen Action, (330) 375-5277.
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