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Features
i nt_ ljm i , «-vu. —. .
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1981
Old chemical dumps resurfacing
making him
shed.
United Press International
HOUSTON — Twenty miles
from Houston’s glittering skyline,
in a remote area near the San
Jacinto River, two old chemical
waste dumps filled with bypro
ducts of the industry that fueled
the city’s growth lie bubbling in
the sun.
The Environmental Protection
Agency discovered French Li
mited and Sikes Pit, hidden in
wooded areas on either side of
U.S, 90, during a search-and-
inspect program begun in 1980
under the 1976 Resource Conser
vation and Recovery Act.
The EPA lists the sites as
orphans, filled to overflowing with
poisonous waste and abandoned.
The EPA still has at least 636 che
mical waste sites to reckon with in
Texas and officials say more
orphans likely will be found.
The orphans are mistakes of a
lengthy past, and the EPA’s five-
year-old “cradle to grave’ hazar
dous waste managment plan is in
tended to provide for them. The
two-pronged attack is aimed at
cleaning up old, unsafe sites and
controlling new wastes.
But funds to pay for the esti
mated $44 billion national clean
up bill are barely trickling in. The
federal clean-up “superfund, fi
nanced by special taxes on indus
try, amounts to a mere $1.6 bil
lion.
Moreover, citizens in many
communities, including some
supported by the petrochemical
industry, are fighting the locating
near them of purportedly safe
waste disposal facilities designed
to eliminate the problem forever.
Many residents do not see the
d waste dumps as a problem.
Lee Hammond, his wife and six
children have lived between Sikes
Pit and French Limited, about a
half mile from each, for 20 years.
He said he remembered chemical
tank trucks came to dump their
light, but he never gave it
much thought: “You kind of get
used to the smell after a while. ”
The former machinist for Brown
& Root said his family drinks from
a well in the front yard and they
catfish caught in a nearby pond,
but he said he would not know if
the dumps affected his or his fami-
s health because “I never have
time to go to a doctor. ”
The EPA stresses sound man
agement and improved technolo
gy to control the flow of hazardous
wastes and has criticized industry
for dragging its feet.
“Although techniques exist for
environmentally sound manage
ment, they have not been widely
used because of their higher cost
and because there was no legal
requirement for them,” a 1980
EPA information brochure re
ported.
But Shell Oil Co.’s environ
mental safety chief, R. D. Mul-
lineaux, said the economics of
waste disposal actually have spur
red the use of improved technolo
gy in the last eight years.
Mullineaux guesses new tech
nology may reduce the amount of
hazardous waste generated by 25
percent, eventually almost elimi
nating the problem.
“The economics have changed
drastically since 1973, ’’ Mullineax
said. “Oil prices have gone up by a
factor of ten so the value of the
good parts of the waste (the parts
that can be recycled or otherwise
used) has gone up dramatically
and it pays to get the waste out of
it.’’
Mullineaux said useful chemic
als once thrown out as waste now
can be removed by improved
separation techniques and high-
temperature incinerators virtually
destroy potential hazards while
providing a source of energy.
Mullineaux said most of what
used to be thrown out as waste can
now be recycled, and inefficient
Lee Hammond reme-
bered when chemical
tank trucks came to
dump their loads at
night, but he never gave
it much thought: “You
kind of get used to the
smell after a while. ”
waste handling is similar to throw
ing away food.
“If the toast cost you a penny
and you burned it, you threw it in
the wastebasket,” he said. “If it
costs you a buck, you’re quite like
ly to scrape the carbon off and eat
the toast.”
But bad management is no
piece of toast. The EPA equates
inefficiency with ecological disas
ter.
The number of potentially
hazardous sites changes as some
facilities are cleared and others are
added, but the list is growing.
Last December, the EPA listed
538 potentially hazardous sites in
Texas. Two months later, there
were 547 and by June, 1981 the
number had grown to 636. In the
same period, 41 Texas sites were
cleared.
French Limited, identified in
August 1980, has fared better than
other orphans. Funds were
appropriated for its cleanup short
ly after it was found, and work
began in September 1980.
“Everytime it rained, the pond
would overflow its banks and the
chemicals would run down to the
river,” said Al Anderson, a
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$1.50
dent C.M. Wright said money ran
out before the job was finished.
The initial work — diking the
pit and pumping and shoveling
2,100 cubic yards of PCB con
taminated material back into it —
cost $750,000 and took ten
months, he said. Another
$150,000 is needed to contain the
rest of the contaminated material,
Wright said. But the work at Sikes
Pit, just across U.S. 90 from
French Limited and a half mile
closer to the San Jacinto River,
cannot even begin until funds be
come available.
CINEMA l&ll
F Skaggs shopping center/Across from A&M
cleanup worker at the site. “We
rebuilt the dike and put some of
the contaminated stuff back into
the pit.”
EPA tests found polychlorin
ated biphenyls, commonly known
as PCBs, in alarming concentra
tions outside the pit. PCBs are
suspected carcinogens and then
manufacture and use, except in
sealed systems such as high-
voltage electrical transformers,
were banned by the federal gov
ernment in 1979.
Kut Rite Environmental Ser
vices did the clean up job at
French Pit, and company presi-
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696-6933 693-0607
A&M Travel Service, Inc
The most professional, most experienced
travel consultants in the area gives you
hometown service with computerized speed.
Let us plan your trips for business
and for fun.
A&M Travel Service became the
largest travel consultants in Brazos
County by giving the best service.
Now we offer our clients SABRE, a
space age computerized service
which provides instant availabilities on
495 domestic and foreign airlines and
instant space reservations.
SABRE can confirm every detail of
your trip. And has instant recall of your
favorite departure times, seat
preference, etc.
There’s no need to call back or wait for
a call to confirm your reservations.
A&M Travel confirms your
reservations as you request them.
With the use of our computer terminal,
you can get custom travel service
every step of the way.
A&M Travel has more travel
consultants and more travel
experience than any other agent in the
area. We deliver, tickets to the campus
(or elsewhere in the community) and
we follow through on the details.
For your next trip, call A&M Travel.
We’ll book your reservations and
confirm them. All in one call.
A&M Travel Service, Inc.
Owned by Keith Langford ’39 (Houston) and Diane Stribiing (President and Agency Manager)
111 University Drive (in the RepublicBank A&M Building) College Station / 846-8881
We support the Aggies with an annual donation
for a 12th Man Scholarship