TL: GREENPEACE MAGAZINE September/October 1988
SO: Greenpeace USA (GP)
DT: September 1988
Keywords: greenpeace periodicals pre90 us digests gp /


CAN ANTARCTICA SURVIVE THE GOLD RUSH?
The Small-town Fight to Save the Great Mississippi
Weird Science: Killing Whales to Save Them.
Is Africa the Industrialized World's New Toxic Dumpsite?

ON THE COVER: Antarctica's long winter lifts, casting an orange
glow over Cape Hallett. Photo by James Perez.

ON THIN ICE

by Paul Bogart

Opening up Antarctica to oil and minerals development poses no
threat to the environment, insist the nations that oversee this
pristine wilderness. But 30 years of over-fishing, waste dumping
and cover-ups tell a different story.

WEIRD SCIENCE 

by Judy Christrup 

The fight to save the whales hinges on closing a loophole in the
International Whaling Commission rules that is big enough to
fire a harpoon through. It's called "scientific" whaling, but it
has little to do with science.

YOU ARE MY RIVER 

by Dick Russell 

The Mississippi River, once called "the body of the nation," is
ailing. The disease is toxic waste, and the cure is being
formulated in the dozens of small towns that line the river's
banks.

ECONOTES: Soviet scientist's last words--Whose fission in Mono
Lake?--Chemical warfare in Peru--No, eh, to "free trade"--
Driving ourselves to the brink.

ACTION ACCESS: Fish sticks and whales--Help wanted: more MMPA
letters--What is your furniture made of?--Dolphins are not
weapons--Decontaminate Bloomington--Nuclear inventory of the
world's navies--A toxics-free home.

CAMPAIGNS: The Beluga tour--Sirius business in the
Mediterranean--MMPA shored up--Idaho's biggest boondoggle.

BRIEFINGS: The latest scandal from Sellafield--Toxic attack on
Africa--Genetic engineering's poor start.

The results of Iceland 's latest scientific whaling voyage are
in: 197 tons of frozen whale meat en route to the markets of
Japan. In June, Greenpeace activists chained themselves to this
illegal shipment, as it passed through Helsinki (see "Weird
Science," page 12). Photo by Reeve/Greenpeace.


ECONOTES:

A DEADLY WARNING 

THE MOST PROMINENT PHYSICIST IN THE SOVIET UNION after the
disaster at Chernobyl was Valerii Legasov. Deputy director of
the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, Legasov was the first
expert to arrive at the stricken reactor and to recount to the
world the story of the earth's worst nuclear disaster.

This April, Legasov committed suicide. His last statement, a
lengthy condemnation of the Soviet Union's nuclear power
program, was published in Pravda under the title "It Is My Duty
To Speak Out." In it he described the disaster as the
"apotheosis and peak of economic mismanagement in our country
over decades." The lessons of Chernobyl, he wrote, "have still
not been analyzed to the end." 

In spite of this chilling epitaph, the Soviet Union remains
committed to nuclear power. Energy planners are phasing out the
Chernobyl-style RBMK graphite reactor in favor of the "safer"
water-cooled VVER model. But according to an April 1987
Greenpeace report commissioned from Dr. Helmut Hirsch of the
Hanover Ecology Group, the VVER suffers "from exceptional safety
hazards," including "inadequate containment structures,
rudimentary emergency coolant systems, fault-prone pressure
reduction system, leakage of primary coolant and signs of wear
in valves and in the electrical system." 

The Greenpeace report also made public for the first time
information on a series of malfunctions that nearly led to a
major accident at the VVER facility in Kozluduy, Bulgaria.
Roughly one in ten reactors around the world are the VVER model,
although most of these Soviet-licensed facilities are clustered
in eastern Europe.

WHOSE FISSION IN MONO LAKE? 

CALIFORNIA'S EXTRA-SALTY MONO LAKE, renowned for its calcium
carbonate "tufa towers" and teeming bird sanctuary, is slowly
drying up because its feeder streams have been diverted to slake
the thirst of Los Angeles, 300 miles to the south. Despite the
efforts of the "Save Mono Lake" movement, studies show that the
lake will be all but dead early in the next century. 

Besides giving itself to the lawns of Los Angeles, Mono Lake may
have had another use--as a clandestine dump for radioactive
wastes. In May a group of geochemists discovered extremely high
levels of carbon-14 in water samples, roughly 15 times the
amount expected as a result of fallout from nuclear tests. 


Having ruled out all natural explanations, the scientists have
tentatively concluded that somebody dumped radioactive waste
into Mono Lake in the 1950s. These levels of carbon-14 are
probably too low to pose a threat to people or wildlife. But the
scientists say that where there's carbon-14, there are often
more dangerous radionuclides, such as plutonium, strontium and
cesium. Further studies, including core samples, are being
conducted.

CHEMICAL WARFARE PLANS OFF TARGET 

THE LATEST WEAPON IN THE WAR ON DRUGS is chemical, more
specifically, a powerful herbicide called tebuthiuron, or
"Spike." The Reagan administration wants to spray it on highland
Peru (and, by extension, highland Peruvians) despite the fact
that Spike kills every broad-leaf plant it touches, can
sterilize an area for as long as five years and has never been
adequately tested for human health effects. Any effort to use
Spike in the U.S. under the conditions that prevail in highland
Peru--wet, populated, and in close proximity to food and water
supplies--would earn the eternal wrath of the EPA. 

These considerations and some others were enough to persuade
Walter Gentner, a former top U.S. technical adviser on narcotics
eradication, to accuse the State Department of "flirting with
disaster." After demanding further testing and review Gentner
was demoted and later quit under protest. The plan also prompted
Eli-Lilly, the manufacturer of Spike, to refuse to sell the
poison to the State Department for fear of being held liable.
The Reagan administration has since accused company executives
of "going AWOL" in the war on drugs.

Bolivia has already turned down Washington's offer of chemical
help in the drug war and many others south of the border are
equally leery of this latest form of escalation. "The Americans
are only thinking of their own social problems, not about the
problems this could cause here," says Carlos Aranda, head of
Peru's Association of Ecology and Conservation.

THE HIGH COST OF FREE TRADE 

ONE ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERT CALLS IT "the most important economic
decision Canada will make in this decade and probably in the
next." It is the Free Trade Agreement with the United States,
hatched in the minds of Canadian and U.S. government economists
and designed to unleash the free-market "economic miracle" by
creating a "level playing field" for multinational corporations
on both sides of the border. 

Environmentalists' objections are numerous. Among other things,
a level playing field leaves no room for energy policies
designed to husband Canada's abundant natural resources or
encourage energy conservation. By eliminating regulations
designed to return wealth to areas from which resources are
extracted (such as the law that says only refined uranium can be
exported), the Free Trade Agreement plays right into the dig-it-
up-and-walk-away school of resource management. "We've given up
our control of our own natural resources by giving the U.S.
unlimited access," says Toby Vigod of the Canadian Environmental
Law Association. "Take water, for example. The agreement says we
can't shut the tap to the U.S. even if there's a drought."

Furthermore, under the agreement, pesticide regulation will be
"harmonized", meaning that Canada's rule that agricultural
chemicals must pose no "unacceptable risk to . . . public
health, plants, animals or the environment" will be downgraded
to parallel the U.S. government's system of weighing the "costs
and benefits" of spraying suspected carcinogens on foodstuffs.

Canadian environmental groups are eager for support from their
colleagues down south but so far there has been little response.
"Canada is being treated like a third world country," says
Vigod, "It's a resource grab with devastating environmental
implications."

FUEL FOR THOUGHT 

"THE CAR'S UTILITY TO THE INDIVIDUAL stands in sharp contrast to
the costs and burdens that society must shoulder to provide an
automobile-centered transportation system." Michael Renner,
"Rethinking the Role of the Automobile," Worldwatch Institute,
July 1988. 

ù There are 1.8 people in the United States for every car. In
Canada, there are 2.3.

ù Ten percent of all arable land in the U.S. has been paved over
to provide roads, parking lots, and other elements of the car
infrastructure.

ù U.S. taxpayers pay $300 billion annually ($2,400 per car) for
road building and maintenance, traffic regulation services and
accidents.

ù Between 1972 and 1985, rail and bus systems received less than
one-third of the funding for World Bank urban transportation
projects. Non motorized modes have been virtually ignored. 

ù Three billion gallons of gasoline were wasted in the U.S. in
1984 due to traffic congestion.


OFF THE WIRE

THOUSANDS OF NORTHERN FUR SEALS, Dall's porpoises, sea birds and
other marine life will be spared entanglement and drowning
thanks to the Supreme Court, which this June 5 upheld a decision
banning Japanese drift nets from the U.S. waters of the North
Pacific.


In July, the delicate coastal ecosystems of Florida,
Massachusetts, Alaska and northern California won a reprieve
when the U.S. Congress approved a moratorium on oil exploration 
through fiscal year 1989.

Environmentalist and rock'n'roller Shona Laing, who penned a hit
about Chernobyl called "Soviet Snow," has been banned from
playing in France because of her support for Greenpeace.

Suffolk County, New York, a leader in recycling legislation, has
now banned the use of polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene in food
packaging. These materials are non-biodegradable and produce
poisons when burned.

Responding to the Greenpeace-led boycott, a major U.S.
restaurant chain has bailed out of a 3,000-ton contract with
Iceland fish products dealer Coldwater in protest over Iceland's
whale hunt, according to Icelandic daily Morgunbladid.

In July, a European Greenpeace toxics team brought their
campaign bus to the Polish coastal city of Gdansk for
environmental research and sampling. Gdansk Bay is one of the
most polluted regions of the Baltic Sea.

Veteran rockers the Grateful Dead and special friends will
perform at a benefit for rain forest protection, to be held in
New York City's Madison Square Garden on September 24th.
Proceeds go to Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network and
indigenous peoples advocacy group Cultural Survival.

Saying "there's no protesters down our way," South Carolina
Senator Strom Thurmond asked President Reagan July 1 to support
the state's bid for a new plutonium production reactor at
Savannah River Plant (SRP). The same day, Greenpeace set up a
new campaign office in Columbia, vowing to "strenuously fight"
the $6 billion project. Ten days later, an accident at SRP,
attributed to a "procedural error," leaked 360,000 gallons of
radioactive water into Four Mile Creek.


ACTION ACCESS

SCHOOLS FOR WHALES 

IN ASHLAND, MASSACCHUSETTS, school children get meals free of
Icelandic fish thanks to food service official Helene DeRuiter.
"Iceland keeps killing the whales and I don't think at that's
right."

At press time, six school systems had agreed to stop buying
Icelandic fish. "They will make a difference," says Greenpeace
campaigner Campbell Plowden. "You can be sure the Icelandic
companies here will report this back home." If you or someone
you know attends a school that buys fish from Iceland, petition
them to stop. Contact Greenpeace at 1436 U Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20009; 202-462-1177, to receive your Icelandic
Whaling School Action Kit.

Also join Greenpeace for the following protests of big Icelandic
fish buyers: Pillsbury, Inc. (owner of Burger King) shareholders
meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 13th (unless they
join the boycott before then); New York Seafood Show in
Manhattan on October 25th and 26th; Jerrico Co. (owner of Long
John Silver restaurants) shareholders meeting in Lexington,
Kentucky, also on October 26th. Call Greenpeace in Washington,
D.C., for details.

STOP DOLPHIN DEATH 

DESPITE THE SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATIONS with the North Pacific
fisheries industry (see Campaigns this issue), the battle for
reauthorization of a strong Marine Mammal Protection Act is far
from won. Write to your senators and representatives (U.S.
Senate, Washington, DC 20510; U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515) and urge them to: 

1) Support the agreement between the fishing industry and
environmentalists to increase education, monitoring and research
on marine mammal interaction problems, and ask Congress to
ensure that adequate funding is available for observer programs
and recovery plans; 

2) Support a phase-out of setting nets "on dolphins" by the
eastern tropical Pacific tuna fleet. Ask Congress to reduce the
dolphin kill quota to zero, eliminate sundown sets, and require
100% observer coverage on U.S. and foreign vessels.

THE LAST WILD STANDS 

EARTH FIRST! needs help saving the Kalmiopsis--the largest
remaining roadless area of old-growth forest in the Pacific
Northwest--from logging and strip mining. Contact Earth First!,
P.O. Box 210, Canyon, CA 94516, 415-376-7329.

The Temagami Forest contains Ontario's last known primeval
stands of red and white pine. Canada's logging industry would
like to blaze logging roads through the area and "harvest" these
ancient trees. Express your concern to: The Honourable David
Peterson, Premier of Ontario, Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario,
M7A-1A1; 416-965-1941.

Furniture buyers should be aware that many hardwood tropical
tree species, including mahoganies, ebonies, cedars and rose
woods are threatened by commercial over-exploitation. These
endangered trees are harvested in rain forests and then exported
to the U.S. as plywood, logs, lumber and furniture. The U. S.
Role in International Tropical Timber Trade details where
Americans get their wood and the impact on international
forests. To obtain this report, write to: Friends of the
Earth,530 7th Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003.

MARINE GUERRILLAS 

THE U.S. NAVY HAS ASKED THE ARMY CORPS of Engineers for a permit
to build a facility to train marine mammals for "perimeter
defense" of nuclear armed Trident submarines based in Bangor,
Washington. The facility would train dolphins, and possibly
belugas and sea lions to assault intruders. Greenpeace opposes
the use of cetaceans for military purposes; dolphins and whales
are inherently intelligent and generally peaceful. Please write
to the Army Corps of Engineers and voice your opposition to this
facility. Refer to Project #OYB-1012156. Army Corps of
Engineers, Regulatory Branch, P.O. Box C-3755, Seattle, WA
98124-2255.

CALL FOR PCB CLEAN-UP 

WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION (WEC) produced capacitors
using PCBs as a dielectric fluid in its Bloomington plant from
1958 to 1977, when such use was banned. Capacitors that failed
quality control, as well as PCB-laden oil and materials, were
dumped in local landfills and sewers, spreading the toxic
materials to perhaps thousands of sites. 

WEC must, by court order, clean up the mess by building the
nation's first garbage-fuelled hazardous waste incinerator in
Bloomington. Local groups, including People Against the
Incinerator (PATI), Monroe County Environmental Coalition (MCEC)
and Indiana Public Interest Research Group (INPIRG) are calling
for 1) studies to show the extent of PCB contamination, 2)
immediate and proper excavation and storage of contaminated
waste and soil, and 3) examination of alternate technologies to
destroy the waste. These groups are asking for national support
to make their case heard. Write: Congressman John Dingell,
Chairman, Committee on Commerce and Energy, Room 2323 Ray burn
Building, Washington, DC 20515; Congressman Lee Hamilton,2187
Rayburn Building, Washington, DC 20515; and Mayor Tomilea
Allison, City Hall, Bloomington, IN 47401.

NUCLEAR NAVIES INVENTORY 

NAVAL CAPTAINS, NOT HEADS OF STATE, often make the final
decision when launching missiles on the high seas, making
nuclear navies the least controllable part of global military
forces. Approximately 16,000 nuclear weapons--about 30% of the
world's total nuclear arsenal--are earmarked for use by the
U.S., Soviet, British, French and Chinese navies. 

The second edition of the Neptune Papers, released by Greenpeace
and the Institute for Policy Studies, provides a comprehensive
inventory of naval nuclear weapons and warships. To obtain a
copy, send $10.00 to Neptune Papers, Greenpeace,1436 U Street,
NW, Washington, DC 20009.

HOUSECLEANING 

LEARNING TO DETOX YOUR HOME is easier than you think, with help
from Greenpeace's new pamphlet, Stepping Lightly on the Earth:
Everyone's Guide To Toxics in the Home. It's available for free
from Membership Services, Greenpeace,1436 U Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20009.

Paid for by Greenpeace Action. Greenpeace Action is a sister
organization of Greenpeace USA that promotes environmental
protection and disarmament through grassroots organizing,
education and legislation. 


On Thin Ice

Can Antarctica Survive The Gold Rush?

By Paul Bogart

IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN THREE DECADES since the United States
built its McMurdo research base. From a few metal huts in the
1950s, the facility has grown to a sprawling community with a
summer population of more than 1,200 scientists, administrators
and support personnel, working and living in roughly 150
buildings. As do all such human enclaves, McMurdo hosts a power
plant, a fuel depot of some 20 storage tanks, and the inevitable
problems of waste and pollution.

These facts would be banal, except for one thing--McMurdo is
located in Antarctica. It is one of roughly 50 tiny human
habitations scattered about an enormous continent, twice the
size of Australia, that has no government, no army, no flag.
Instead, Antarctica is an experiment in collective management,
governed since 1957 by a coalition of nations that have met
certain criteria and signed the Antarctic Treaty. Once 12, the
treaty signatories have now grown to 38, most of them developed
nations and all of them eager to put the best face on their
exclusive management of an enormous continent. In this light,
such seemingly mundane concerns as waste disposal take on an
enormous significance.

The Antarctic experiment is being put to the test--indeed it
already has been tested and found lacking, according to the
standards of those who put the protection of the Antarctic
environment as their highest priority. But the experiment
persists, largely because the treaty signatories insist that it
continue, even in the face of scrutiny and protest from the
scores of nations and non governmental organizations not
represented in the southern continent. They insist that it
continue in the service of several goals--science, territorial
ambitions (seven of the 38 signatories have claims, some
overlapping, to wedges of the Antarctic pie) and, last but
certainly not least, profit.

It is this last consideration that finally may justify the
complaints of those who say the treaty system does not serve the
best interests of the Antarctic, or the earth as a whole. Over
the last two decades Antarctica has emerged, in the eyes of
many, as a potential source of oil and minerals for an
increasingly resource-hungry world. The seemingly inevitable
process culminated in June 1988, at a meeting in New Zealand,
where the 38 Antarctic Treaty nations established a framework
through which, for the first time, commercial exploitation of
the Antarctic continent might occur.

FOR MANY, THE SIGNING OF THE MINERALS TREATY poses an
unparalleled threat to Antarctica. How, they ask, is oil and
mineral extraction compatible with the goals of science
(Antarctica's most prized characteristic is that it is
relatively uncontaminated) and the delicate balance that nature
has wrought here? 

In ecological terms, Antarctica is not like the rest of the
world. Even time runs at its own, uniquely Antarctic pace. The
six-month austral summer is really one day, as the sun never
sets. And the Antarctic winter is just a night, a night half-a-
year long, in which the sun barely peeks above the horizon.
Biological processes follow the same rhythm, a footprint in
Antarctic moss might take 10 years to heal, a piece of organic
debris 100 years to degrade.

Off the coast, the icy waters of the Southern Ocean harbor a
marine community of startling abundance. Schools of fin fish
share the continental shelf with seals, sea lions, penguins and
whales. Swarms of krill, inches long and shrimp-like in
appearance, drift in numbers beyond counting. The myriad islands
that surround the continent and the long Antarctic Peninsula
offer haven for teeming communities of marine mammals and flocks
of sea birds.

Few argue that oil drilling and mining doesn't present a threat
to the integrity of this ecosystem. Rather, the treaty nations
insist that the process will be conducted carefully and slowly,
following guidelines laid down by mutual agreement. Critics say
that one need look no further than the treaty nations' conduct
within the restrictions set by past agreements to know that the
minerals convention is a profound and irrevocable mistake. For
the treaty is only the latest in a long line of agreements these
nations have concluded in hopes of successfully "managing" the
region's resources and governing national activities there. The
record, to be frank, is not encouraging. 

In 1977, the Antarctic Treaty nations gathered to sign the
Convention on the Conservation of Marine Living Resources
(CCAMLR) designed to regulate fishing in the region. It states
as its objective ensuring the "stable recruitment" of all
"harvested populations." It calls for the "maintenance of the
ecological relationships between harvested, dependent and
related populations" of Antarctic life and "the restoration of
depleted populations." And, rather than trying to manage the
resources by calculating the acceptable "take" of each species
individually, CCAMLR calls for approaching the environment from
a perspective that incorporates an understanding of the entire
ecosystem.

In practice, these progressive goals have proved elusive. One of
the main impediments to sound management is structural--all
decisions in CCAMLR have to be reached by consensus. This
crippling concession has meant that the conservation measures
adopted by CCAMLR can only be as strong as its most reluctant
and shortsighted member.

The history of fisheries management by consensus in the
Antarctic is revealing. By 1983 it was clear that Antarctic fish
stocks were being dangerously overexploited--at least three
species of fin fish had been so overfished that in some areas,
particularly around the island of South Georgia, less than ten
percent of the original stock remained. To halt the plunder,
several motions were offered at the meeting of CCAMLR. Minimum
mesh sizes for fishing nets were considered, as was a ceiling on
total catch by weight. A ban on fishing within 12 miles of South
Georgia, the most heavily fished area, was also proposed.

But because of the consensus process, most of these proposals
were rejected. After the Soviet Union, Poland and East Germany
registered their disapproval, by 1985 all that remained of the
original set of prohibitions was a mesh-size limit on six
commercial species and a total catch ceiling on fishing around
South Georgia. At the same time, the fleets were asked to
refrain from fishing for N. Rossii, the most depleted of all fin
fish species.

At the CCAMLR meeting in 1986, the fishing nations were asked to
make a good faith agreement to limit their catches in one area
to the same level as the year before. A year later, it was
discovered that the Soviet fleet had honored the "gentlemen's
agreement" by upping its catch of one fin fish species in the
area by a factor of six. 

As expected, these "conservation measures" were far from
adequate. When U.S. scientists surveyed the state of fin fish
populations around South Georgia in 1987, they discovered that
fin fish stocks "remain in a depleted state." As to the
prospects for N. Rossii, their report concluded "there are no
indications of recovery."

Consensus paralysis has also gutted proposals to put impartial
observers aboard fishing boats. Because information supplied by
the fleets is a critical source of scientific data for Antarctic
researchers, a comprehensive monitoring program is considered
crucial to the understanding of the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
Despite a rather plaintive call from certain quarters of CCAMLR
for nations to grant "a sympathetic reception to requests for
the placement of scientific observers on fishing vessels," the
fishing nations have consistently rejected the proposal. As a
result, data is sparse and unreliable, and breaches of these
"gentlemen's agreements" are often discovered after the fact, if
at all.

This management failure does not bode well for the future of
Antarctic fisheries, particularly for the mainstay of the
Southern Ocean ecosystem, the massive schools of shrimp-like
krill. Whales, seals, and a host of other species consume krill
as the mainstay of their diets, and as such, the animals occupy
an essential niche in the Antarctic ocean food chain.

Despite little research into the implications, the catch total
for krill has skyrocketed from 20,000 tons in 1973-1974 to a
peak of more than 500,000 tons in 1981-82. Only the difficulty
of open-sea processing of the crustaceans has kept the yield
from rising further (unless frozen or peeled immediately after
being hauled aboard, the krill's carapace releases fluorine,
contaminating the catch). 

Had "harvesting" continued at a rate suggested by some of the
more enthusiastic fishing nations (rates that, it turned out,
were drastically overestimated because krill's lifespan is twice
as long as originally thought), the effect on the delicate food
web of the Southern Ocean could have been catastrophic. And the
present management regime holds little promise of avoiding a
disaster. "If krill proves to be an economically exploitable
resource," writes John Heap, chief CCAMLR negotiator for the
United Kingdom, ". . . past experience gives no grounds to
expect that catastrophe will not, despite (CCAMLR), be the
eventual outcome."

THE HUT FROM WHICH ROBERT SCOTT LAUNCHED his ill-fated trip to
the South Pole stands today, surrounded by 1911-vintage refuse--
nails, tins of biscuits and cocoa and assorted garbage. The
corpse of a penguin lies inside on the dissecting table. The
debris is perfectly preserved, as are all things left in the
dry, freezing Antarctic environment.

Eighteen miles across the ice of McMurdo Sound, there are other
traces of human presence. Truck tires, sections of pipe and
piles of assorted debris litter the landscape. Drums of oil lie
scattered about, some leaking into the porous Antarctic soil.
Along the shoreline, parts of trucks, car batteries, plastic and
metal refuse line a bay whose bottom is layered with three
decades' accumulation of waste material. 

This is not a remnant of some forgotten age of Antarctic
exploration however--this is the day-to-day waste management
regime at the United States Antarctic Program's McMurdo Base.
Although national research bases like McMurdo are supposed to
adhere to the Antarctic Treaty Code of Conduct for Waste
Disposal, signed in 1975, they routinely violate its provisions.
According to Bruce Manheim of the Environmental Defense Fund,
several of the waste management practices in use at McMurdo
would violate U.S. federal law if tried in the United States. 

Among McMurdo's most glaring pollution problems: a 1974 dive by
Dr. Paul Dayton in Winter Quarters Bay found the sediment so
contaminated with diesel fuel additive, "it appeared almost
combustible." Other sites on the ocean floor off McMurdo have
PCB concentrations comparable to those found in the most
polluted estuaries and bays in the United States. Open burning,
and the presence of discarded truck tires, batteries and
plastics, are all violations of the Code of Conduct.

McMurdo is not the only base to contaminate its surroundings. In
February 1986, a British biologist named Dr. Ron Lewis-Smith
visited Australia's Casey Station and the nearby abandoned
Wilkes station. His report notes that Wilkes appears just as it
was in 1969, when it was abandoned in favor of Casey. "Tinned
and bottled food, machine parts, building materials, chemicals
(including more than 200 boxes of tinned caustic soda spilling
their contents onto the snow), metal drums, flares and even
explosives were scattered over at least a square kilometer." 

At Casey station, Lewis-Smith found, "rubbish was dumped in the
station's dump twice daily, irrespective of wind force and with
no separation of non-combustible, toxic or hazardous materials,
including petrol." He found dead sea birds and penguins around
the dump, as well as scattered food scraps and bones "which
could transmit viral infections to nearby penguin colonies."
During the burning of the garbage at the dump site, "scraps of
paper and soot regularly descended on the nearby Site of Special
Scientific Interest." In the wake of the release of this report,
Australia has begun a clean-up of Casey station.

WITH A DOZEN MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS drilling and mining
under the flags of a variety of host nations, how will these
countries police each other? Again, the past record is dismal. 

In the early 1980s, the French government began blasting a
landing strip into the rocks at Pointe Geologie. The plan was an
environmental disaster--the Dumont d'Urville base lies in one of
the richest ecosystems in all of Antarctica, and the
construction not only killed penguins (violating a key provision
of one of the treaty agreements), but the airstrip itself
divided a nesting area in two, cutting off the access of an
entire penguin colony to the sea.

The response from the treaty nations was, in a word, muted. At
the 1985 treaty meeting in Brussels, not one country was willing
to insist that the issue be formally discussed. The unity of the
attendees was paramount, suggested some delegates, and such a
divisive issue dare not be raised. If, in the presence of clear
evidence that one nation is destroying the Antarctic
environment, there is almost unanimous agreement among the
treaty nations that the issue not be discussed, it is clear that
the present management regime leaves much to be desired. 


By the same token, what protections do exist under the present
agreements appear at best superficial. Specially Protected Areas
(SPAS), designated ostensibly to protect a region completely
from human encroachment, are often violated with impunity. While
permit regulations for SPAS were being finalized at the 1975
treaty meeting, the Soviet Union and Chile were calmly building
bases in the middle of the Fildes Peninsula SPA. Instead of
demanding a halt to the construction, the treaty nations
responded by redrawing the boundaries of the SPA to accommodate
the new construction. The Fildes Peninsula SPA was created in
part to protect several biologically important melt lakes, but
in April of this year, Greenpeace investigators found that
one of the lakes was being used by the Chilean base as a garbage
dump.

IT IS TELLING THAT THE ALTERNATIVE to exploitation, preserving
Antarctica for peaceful scientific research and wildlife
protection, has not been formally proposed by any nation, but by
a group of non-governmental organizations. The World Park
proposal, supported year after year by the Antarctic and
Southern Ocean Coalition and Greenpeace, has been consistently
rejected by the treaty nations as unrealistic. In view of their
inept and irresponsible handling of Antarctic resources over the
last three decades, however, preserving Antarctica as a World
Park may be the most rational and conservative option available.

Sir Peter Scott, the eminent naturalist and environmentalist
whose explorer father died on return from the South Pole, wrote
a letter to the delegates at the minerals meeting last June. In
it he urged them, without success, to put off their negotiations
and continue the ban on minerals exploitation. "In my view," he
wrote, "Antarctica stands at the crossroads. If the minerals
convention is signed and brought into effect in its present
form, it will mean that human greed, the desire for short-term
profit. the urge to conquer new frontiers at whatever the cost
to the environment, will have triumphed yet again. It will mean
that the devastation wrought over virtually the whole of the
rest of the globe is likely to spread to the last wilderness.
Antarctica represents the last chance we have of proving that we
really will change our ways and begin living in harmony with the
planet." 

Paul Bogart is the Antarctic Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace
in the United States.


MINERALS NEGOTIATIONS: A PANDORA'S BOX 

Six years of sometimes contentious negotiations ended June 2 in
Wellington, New Zealand, when delegates representing 33 of the
38 Antarctic Treaty Parties approved the Antarctic Minerals
Convention. Once ratified, this agreement will allow any
commercial expedition to begin prospecting in Antarctica almost
immediately. Interested companies can then apply for permits to
further explore and develop promising sites.

Although lip service was paid to environmental concerns, the
thorniest negotiations took place over issues of sovereignty and
equity--just who, the delegates and the rest of the world wanted
to know, was going to reap profits from the southern continent?
In the end, it was the demands of those nations best prepared to
begin minerals exploitation--the United States, the United
Kingdom, France and Japan--that prevailed. While a few
developing countries, led by China and India, have joined the
treaty system, the rest of the world has been completely
excluded from the negotiations. Five years of discussions and a
U.N. resolution declaring the resources of Antarctica "the
common heritage of mankind" were ignored by the treaty parties. 

As for the hundreds of environmental groups interested in the
fate of the southern continent, they all have been consistently
denied even observer status at the meetings, and only a few of
the delegations have environmental representation. Says
Greenpeace Antarctic campaigner Lena Hagelin, "This deliberate
exclusion of those with a legitimate interest in Antarctica only
underscores the hypocrisy of the negotiators' claim that the
convention protects the Antarctic environment."

Without a doubt, the biggest loser in these negotiations is the
fragile Antarctic wilderness. According to the guidelines
established by the convention, no area will be opened if mining
will cause "significant" adverse effects on the environment or
ecosystem. But the definition of "significant" will be judged by
a commission composed of the 20 voting Antarctic treaty nations,
all of whom have agreed in principle to commercial activity
there. The rules say that any commission member may veto the
opening of an area based on environmental or other concerns.
Judging from the manner in which potentially divisive
environmental issues have been handled in the past, however, it
is unlikely these mechanisms will be used in defense of the
Antarctic ecosystem.

Once "opened" by the commission, an area becomes the fiefdom of
a ten member regulatory committee, which decides the fate of
specific requests for permits and develops a "management scheme"
for activities there. Here again, the impact of mining
activities on the environment has been given little
consideration. For instance, exclusive rights to development are
granted to every expedition once an exploration permit is
approved. Only a major unforeseen environmental hazard or
blatant defiance of the convention can cause an operator to lose
the right to continue mining.

The convention does establish a Scientific, Technical and
Environmental Advisory Committee, but it has no independent
function and little influence. It can only speak out when
invited to testify at commission or regulatory committee
meetings. The convention requires the advisory committee to
conduct technical and environmental assessments of proposed
activities at most major decision-making points. But this too is
hollow because no one is required to follow the committee's
recommendations. Or as negotiation chair Chris Beeby explained,
"the feeling was we should not pollute the advisory committee
with decision-making power, which would give it a political
role."

Still largely unanswered is the question of what happens if a
commercial expedition does cause significant damage to the
Antarctic environment. The convention states that the operator
will be held liable, but the specific details which will bring
the offender to justice and ensure a complete clean-up have yet
to be written. The convention text already contains significant
loopholes, which will likely be expanded in the final protocol.
For example, an operator is not responsible for an accident
caused by "a natural disaster of an exceptional character, which
could not reasonably have been foreseen."

In the end, most environmentalists agree that the minerals
convention will do a lot more to encourage commercial activities
than to protect Antarctica from wanton exploitation. Says
Catherine Wallace, spokeswoman for the multi group Antarctic and
Southern Ocean Coalition, "Rather than prevent mining, this
convention is something mining companies desperately need as a
precondition to minerals activities. It provides them with the
legal security to go ahead." And Green peace's Lena Hagelin
adds, "What's needed is not a minerals regime but a protection
regime."

Dana K Harmon


WEIRD SCIENCE: KILLING WHALES IN ORDER TO SAVE THEM

By Judy Christrup

A few recalcitrant whaling nations are determined to continue
whaling under the guise of science. While the deception is
transparent to most observers, the threat to the earth's whales
is all too real.

AN ICELANDIC SHIP'S GUNNER aims his harpoon, fires and watches
as the grenade-tipped spear pierces the whale's blubber and
explodes. The massive carcass is hoisted aboard, gutted, cut
into blocks, and shipped halfway around the world to the markets
of Japan.

Commercial whaling, right?

Wrong. Although the distinction is difficult to discern
particularly for the whales this is called "scientific" whaling.
Whaling disguised as science has emerged as the ruse of choice
among nations determined to maintain their whaling industries in
the face of international opinion, the rulings of the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) and economic sanctions.

Since the IWC resolved in 1982 that commercial whaling must be
suspended, nations that want to continue killing whales are left
with two choices. One is to simply defy the IWC, a not unpopular
solution, since a nation may reject commission rulings simply by
filing an objection.

The other method of skirting the ban on commercial whaling is to
fashion a scientific hunt, a practice permitted under the 1946
charter of the IWC.

Whaling under the banner of science really came into its own
when the United States began to threaten with trade sanctions
the nations that filed endless objections and were, in the
opinion of U.S. law, "diminishing the effectiveness of the IWC."
To create a scientific hunt, IWC nations like Japan, South
Korea, Iceland and Norway simply repackage their fleets'
itineraries with a schedule that pays lip service to research
goals. Beyond that, they continue with business as usual.

It is when the whalers present their scientific findings to the
IWC scientific committee that the bogus nature of research hunts
becomes painfully evident.

Case in point: this year's IWC meeting. Iceland, one of
scientific whaling's early proponents, has determined through
last year's "research" that levels of the hormone progesterone
are higher in pregnant female whales than non-pregnant females.
Its studies also indicated that sei whales have similar shapes
whether they come from the North Pacific or North Atlantic.

A proposal by Norway for next year's research is similarly
unfounded. Its "research," among other things, involves
attempting to capture and anaesthetize five minke whales, as
part of a 35-whale quota, in order to implant radio
transmitters. "It is hard to believe a minke could be
anaesthetized without being killed, since minkes are voluntary
breathers and would require some sort of artificial respiration
not yet developed for large whales," says Campbell Plowden,
whale campaign coordinator for Greenpeace. The IWC's scientific
committee rejected the Norwegian research proposal, but Norway
is ignoring the IWC's recommendations and going ahead with its
hunt. 

The chief benefactor of the spurious research is Japan, the
world's only big-time importer of whale meat. After risking U.S.
trade sanctions by years of flouting IWC decisions, Japan
submitted its first "research" plan in 1987. The original
proposal called for hunting 825 minke and 50 protected sperm
whales annually, a regime designed to prove that enough whales
remained to lift the moratorium and openly resume commercial
whaling. 

After being rejected by the IWC, Japan repackaged the plan as a
one-year feasibility study, dropping the sperm whale kill and
lowering the number of minkes slaughtered to 300. As the IWC
wasn't scheduled to meet again before Japan's whaling fleet set
sail, the British delegation called for a special mail-in vote
on the proposal. Before all the ballots could be tallied (the
voting ultimately ran decisively against the Japanese), Japan
was already piling up minke carcasses on its factory ship, the
Nisshin Maru 3.

Japan is now considering another round of Antarctic research
whaling and trying a fresh approach to keep part of its coastal
whaling fleet in business. After failing to reclassify its small
coastal whaling hunt from "commercial" to "aboriginal
subsistence" at last year's IWC meeting, the Japanese delegates
came back this year armed with a report from an international
team of social scientists. They argued that traditional meat
sharing is not commercial. But careful study of their
transactions shows that 95% of coastal minke meat was sold on
the open market. Even so, the issue is not resolved. The IWC
will consider creating a new category of whaling to accommodate
coastal hunts during the moratorium. 

Over the years the IWC, led largely by the U.S., has tried to
limit the scope of scientific proposals, first by insisting that
nations consume the whale meat from these hunts domestically
(which means no exports to Japan), then by requiring that
scientific hunts involve research goals that cannot be
accomplished by non-lethal means. Some progress was made in
regard to this last item; a stricter set of guidelines for
reviewing lethal research proposals has been adopted.

The domestic consumption requirement, however, didn't fare as
well. By the time it cleared the IWC's hurdles, it was watered
down to a version requiring that the whalers export no more than
49% of their whale catch. At this reduced level, Iceland reaped
an estimated $8 million in revenue by exporting whale products
to Japan. 

Despite this income, Iceland still attempts illegal exports over
the limit. Greenpeace recently uncovered a shipment of Icelandic
whale meat that illegally entered Finland en route to Japan. A
team of Greenpeacers first blockaded the containers in
Helsinki's harbor, and then called on the Finnish government to
seize the contraband shipment. Even though the Minister of
Transport acknowledged the meat had entered the country in
violation of its Whale Protection Act and obligations under the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),
the shipment was returned to Iceland.

Ultimately, the no-go decision on a nation's research proposal
hinges on more than just the integrity of its science. Trade and
military relations are also key considerations. For instance,
the U.S. Pelly Amendment to the Fishermen's Protective Act
provides that the President can embargo imports of fisheries
products sold by a whaling nation if the country is shown to be
reducing the effectiveness of the IWC. For Japan, sale of such
products is worth over $500 million a year, but trade
considerations come first and the U.S. has yet to wield the
powerful whale protection laws available to it.

Another example: the U.S. doesn't want to push the whaling issue
too aggressively, for fear that Iceland won't be so
accommodating to the U.S. NATO base on its soil. In the past,
Iceland's delegates have used the base as a point of leverage.
This year the U.S. included a member of the National Security
Council in some of the deliberations on their position vis-a-vis
Iceland in the IWC. 

The final deal cut at the IWC this year between Iceland and the
U.S. bears the marks of a coerced compromise. Iceland agreed to
reduce its fin whale catch from 80 to 68, and its sei whale
catch from 20 to 10. It also agreed to modify its "research
program" to meet the recommendations of the scientific
committee, but only in that portion of its hunting itinerary
that doesn't involve killing the whales. 

The future of research whaling is uncertain. Iceland, Norway and
Japan are now talking about a new breed of scientific hunts
called "ecosystem studies." They reason that since whales eat a
lot of fish, it would behoove the IWC members to allow them to
kill whales in order to determine the whales' relationship with
global fisheries. Such a research protocol panders to the
fishing industries of member nations while exploiting the
international concern over the decline of the world's fish catch
(a concern that has been used to justify the slaughter of seals
and other marine mammals in U.S., Canadian and European waters).
If research whaling takes this route, whale killing could be
justified as a means of saving fish for fishermen. 

Although the option does exist, defection from the IWC on the
part of the whalers seems unlikely. The international
implications of dropping out and the high profile of IWC
activities make the political costs of withdrawal prohibitively
high for even the most ardent of whaling nations. But Japan
can't profitably maintain its whaling fleet indefinitely at such
reduced volume. Eventually, it must either dry dock the fleets
or get back into whaling some other way. In any case, the whale-
saving strategy for anti-whaling nations and non-governmental
organizations is to continue the pressure to clamp down on the
IWC loopholes through lobbying, boycotts and protest. 


YOU ARE MY RIVER:

The small-town fight to save the Great Mississippi

BY DICK RUSSELL

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER'S ANNUAL TOXIC BURDEN. 

Before the industrialization of the basin, the Mississippi used
to carry little more than topsoil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now
it is a conduit for a staggering amount of pollution each year.
A sampling:

11,473,440 pounds of aluminum
921,000 pounds of copper
10,700 pounds of trichloroethylene*
104,000 pounds of chloroforms
10,700 pounds of chromium*
61,693 pounds of Atrazine*
42,801 pounds of dichloromethane*
10,700 pounds of carbon tetrachloride*
31,020 pounds of Alachlor*
62,877 pounds of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons* 
732,973 pounds of nickels

*known or suspected carcinogens. For nickel and chromium, 
carcinogenicity is restricted to certain chemical forms.

THE MISSISSIPPI. Old Man River. Old Big Strong. Father of
Waters. Thus did the French, the Blacks and the Indians describe
it. There was always a masculine quality attached, perhaps
reflective of its self proclaimed "discoverer," Hernando de
Soto, who first glimpsed its swiftness, turbidity and force in
1542 and then died along its banks of fever, his weighted body
dispatched to the muddy waters. 

The Mississippi was first the western boundary and then the
lifeline of a new country, its name intertwined with the names
of Lincoln, Fulton and its greatest chronicler, Mark Twain, who
took his name from the river. It has always connoted a robust,
fertile frontier--"a man that drunk Mississippi water" wrote
Twain through his character Huckleberry Finn, "could grow corn
in his stomach if he wanted to." 

The river's mythos is matched by its topography. The Mississippi
flows for nearly 2,500 miles from northern Minnesota's Lake
Itasca south to the Gulf of Mexico. On the way it drains two
Canadian provinces and nearly half the continental United
States, gathering to itself over 100,000 tributaries before it
thunders into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of some 400 billion
gallons a day. 

And, at one time, life along the Mississippi was idyllic. The
fertile soil, fresh water, wildlife and temperate climate
brought settlers from all over the east into the river basin.
"The basin of the Mississippi is the body of the nation," wrote
the editors of Harper's Magazine in 1863, "As a dwelling place
for civilized man, it is by far the first upon our globe."

TODAY, THIS "BODY OF THE NATION" IS ILL. 

The symptoms are sometimes hard to see--the river still is, at
least superficially, the "strong brown God" of T.S. Eliot. But
it is ailing, and the most obvious manifestation is in the
attitudes of the people that live by its banks. In familiar
places like Baton Rouge and in less-known communities like
Calvert City, Kentucky, they don't call it Old Man River any
more. People have new catch phrases for their homes now, names
like "Cancer Corridor" and "Chemical Alley." 

The river, and the communities of people and wildlife that live
along it, are being poisoned. The river itself--channelled,
diked leveed and routed beyond recognition--has had its nature
irrevocably altered. Along with the topsoil that gives the river
its characteristic hue, the Mississippi now carries millions of
tons of industrial, municipal and agricultural pollutants that
are discharged, dumped flushed, washed, leaked, spilled and
rained into the "body of the nation" and its tributaries.

The toxic load borne by the Mississippi basin comes from
hazardous waste facilities (in numbers beyond counting, they
include the thousands of drilling mud pits in Louisiana,
hundreds of licensed landfills, some 60 toxic waste injection
wells and hundreds more clandestine or forgotten dumps), 590-
plus industries that discharge their wastes directly into the
river, more than 620 municipal waste water treatment plants
carrying toxic urban run-off and industrial wastes the airborne
releases of the scores of chemical manufacturers and power
plants, a dozen pulp and paper mills and countless other
sources. 

It begins in the north, where, according to a report by the
Minneapolis-based Citizens for a Better Environment, the region
contributes more than ten million pounds of toxic chemicals to
the river each year, including 180,000 pounds of known or
suspected carcinogens. The source is the combined effluent of
Minnesota's corporations and municipal waste facilities--
entities like 3M Chemolite Continental Nitrogen, Ashland
Refinery and Pig's Eye. 

It ends at the Gulf of Mexico, where the staggering torrent of
nitrogen and nitrates issuing from agriculture, municipal waste
treatment facilities, power plants and internal combustion
engines has created a seasonal "dead zone"--a pulsing wash of
sterile ocean leached of oxygen by pollution-caused blooms of
algae. The dead zone begins at the mouth of the Mississippi and
extends westward to the Texas border. During 6 months of 1986,
it covered nearly 2.4 million acres of prime fishing grounds.

In between are the Mississippi basin's cities and towns, few of
which have been spared the effects of the chemical miasma that
grips the river. In the last two years, dozens of small activist
groups have organized themselves around the Mississippi's
pollution problem. Travelling down its vast length is both an
uplifting and discouraging experience the renaissance in local
activism is inspiring, but the symptoms of toxic poisoning are
advanced enough to suggest that the road to a clean river is a
long and difficult one.


CALVERT CITY, KENTUCKY, POPULATION 3004. 

Home to an eerie skyline that juts out of the fields of corn and
soybeans--a complex of nine major industries which, within a
radius of only a few miles, produces over three quarters of the
hazardous waste in the Tennessee Valley's entire seven-state
region. Calvert City hosts one EPA-designated Super fund site,
a five-acre landfill on the riverbank where B.F. Goodrich and
Airco used to dump mercury compounds, chlorinated hydrocarbons
and other chemical trash. Like a vulture to a corpse, a company
called Liquid Waste Disposal moved here in 1979, setting up an
incinerator and a landfill to accommodate its new neighbor's
effluent, along with trucked-in wastes from some 40 other
states. 

Toxics expert Dr. Paul Connett calls it a "savage
juxtaposition"--the fact that just upstream of Calvert City is
Kentucky Lake, the largest man-made lake in the United States,
backed up behind a Tennessee Valley Authority dam and dotted
with sailboats and fishermen. Officially, swimming is not
allowed because of pollution, but the warnings are generally
ignored. "They claim several million people visit here every
year," says Corinne Whitehead, head of the Coalition for Health
Concern.

The impounding of Kentucky Lake stabilized the floodplain, which
meant that the loss of farmland flooded by the rising waters
could be more than offset, at least economically, by the new
industries established just to the south. Thus came Pennwalt and
Air Products and a dozen other industries, manufacturing
hydrofluoric acid, freon, benzene, chloroform, carbon
tetrachloride and formaldehyde while discharging millions of
gallons of waste water into the Tennessee River just upstream
from the Mississippi. 

And then came the health problems. "Just too many friends were
dying of cancer," says Whitehead, who formed the Coalition for
Health Concern in 1985. "At parties, anywhere you went, cancer
was the topic of conversation. We talked about the couples that
had it, and the children." In 1983, the national cancer rate was
188.3 per 100,000 people, but in Marshall County, where Calvert
City is, the rate was more than 308. This region also shows the
nation's highest rate of lupus (a deadly immune-deficiency
disorder that Connett calls "chemically induced AIDS").

Eight years ago, there were no cancer specialists in this
region. Since then, treatment centers have been added to two
local hospitals, and, three blocks from White head's home in
nearby Benton, there is a new school for "exceptional children"-
-including some 40 who are handicapped by birth defects. 

We are parked behind Liquid Waste Disposal (LWD), looking
through the shuttered gates at the belching stacks of LWD's
three hazardous waste incinerators. Seven years after opening
the plant, LWD also established a landfill along Cypress Creek
for the ash. "The landfill property begins here at these
fences," she says as we round a bend above the river. "Amos [LWD
owner Amos Shelton] generously 'donates' the ash to put on the
streets when there's ice."

What goes into the furnaces is kept confidential by LWD and the
state government. By night, armed men patrol the 1,000 acre
complex. "I took pictures of the ash pile once," says Whitehead,
"so they put a fence up so you couldn't see it. This is probably
the most heavily guarded landfill in America." It is obvious,
she says, that except for carbon dioxide monitoring, there is no
pollution control equipment on the stacks. No one in town is
even sure who owns LWD. The Mayor of Calvert City, Kean
McKinney, also happens to be the plant's general manager. 

That night, the Coalition for Health Concern meets in Corinne
Whitehead's living room to talk strategy. Some people are from
Paducah, a town due west which gets 90 percent of its drinking
water from the Tennessee River. Nearly all have health problems
or are related to someone who does; one young reporter, whose
father was killed in an accident at Pennwalt, is now out of a
job--fired, he says, because he spoke out against his city's
pollution woes in print.

The floor is turned over to B.N. Dossett, a former state
policeman who also used to wash tank cars at Penn Walt. He
speaks eloquently but slowly, pacing himself to make up for the
lung lost to cancer. "It doesn't make any difference how many
people are killed or are afflicted with any disease connected
with toxic waste. It doesn't make any difference as long as the
dollar comes in. That is the name of the game in Marshall County
and Calvert City, in Paducah, in all of Kentucky, and all of
the United States." Then, as if the continental sweep of his
statement astounded even himself, his voice lowers briefly as he
repeats, "That's the name of the game."

DOWNSTREAM FROM CALVERT CITY, 165 miles down the Mississippi as
the crow flies, is Memphis. Called by Twain the "Good Samaritan
City of the Mississippi," Memphis has in many ways severed its
connection to the river--years of flood control measures have
replaced the city's riverbank with cement walls and dirt levees.
Here, in this driest of summers in over 50 years, the river is
as low as anyone can recall. Barge traffic has slowed to a
crawl, when it's moving at all. But it is business as usual at
the bottom of Jackson Street, where a railroad spur runs behind
the Velsicol Chemical Corporation.

The gray Union Tank Cargo rail cars that line the track bear
labels reading "Muriatic Acid" and "Chlorine," but it is
possible that other compounds are being manufactured behind the
barbed wire-topped gates. Velsicol is privately held (no
stockholders' reports or public disclosure requirements), and
whether or not it continues to formulate the lethal termiticide
Chlordane, or the pesticides Heptachlor and Endrin, isn't public
knowledge. 


Memphis has long been a manufacturing center for chlorinated
hydrocarbons, a class of chemicals of grave concern to
environmentalists. Today, some 30 miles of the river are closed
to fishing because of high levels of Chlordane run-off. The Wolf
River, one of two tributaries also closed to fishing, has a
Superfund dump site on its banks--the now closed Hollywood
landfill which Velsicol used for years. Hollywood is one of an
estimated 112 such dump sites in the Memphis area.

John Liebman and Kenny Bruno, toxics activists for Greenpeace,
are here surveying the extent of the problem. "This is an
unlined ditch ' says Bruno, pointing to a gutter draining liquid
from Velsicol's property. "You've probably got a few guys from
the state pollution agency that know about it, but you could
never get them out here to sample. They are totally outweighed
and out muscled by the company." Liebman points to the
vegetation--the stream, if it can be called that, has little
plant life along the waterline. 

Memphis' activists, a "scarce breed" in the words of one local
organizer, are meeting at the Mid-South Peace and Justice
Center. The talk turns to the dams and levees that have been
built in a massive effort to prevent the river from doing what
it wants to do--meander through the valley undercutting its
banks, creating ox bows and finding new paths to the Gulf.

To the Army Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi is "a large and
powerful adversary ...we are fighting Mother Nature...a battle
we have to fight day by day, year by year. The health of our
economy depends on it." At Vicksburg in 1973, the river rose
58.7 feet, one of the highest floods ever recorded on earth. A
third of the river's total flow has been diverted down the
Atchafalaya, in part to save the economy of New Orleans which,
without the decades of channelization, diversion and "river
control structures," would be without a riverfront today. 

"River channelization should be condemned," says Larry Smith of
the University of Tennessee Medical Center, "It is one of the
largest forms of environmental degradation going on." Altering
the flow and isolating flood plains with levees is the Army
Corps' own undoing, for each time an upstream community is
protected from the river's inevitable floods, the problem is
exacerbated downstream.

From 1953 to 1973, during the same period that "river control"
construction was booming, federal disaster relief, most of which
is payment for flood losses, grew from $52 million to $2.5
billion. "Constriction of the river channel causes flooding and
makes floods higher," wrote Charles Belt in a report on the
Vicksburg flood. "The 1973 flood record was man-made."

IT IS SIX HOURS DRIVING TIME south from Memphis, past the moss-
covered trees that line the fabled Natchez Trace, to Natchez,
Mississippi--Twain's "last of the beautiful hill cities," the
antebellum hub of the South. The Mississippi curls within a
stone's throw of J. Wesley Cooper's Molasses Flats Antique
Store. 

At 63, with his thick white hair and dark brows, Cooper could
have posed as a Confederate colonel in the pages of the two
coffee table books he has authored about antebellum mansions.
Now the former president of the Natchez Historical Society is
sitting on a sofa presiding over a meeting of local activists. 

"Ever receive a death sentence?" he asks rhetorically, "I did,
three years ago. I was told I had six months to live unless I
had major surgery for my stomach cancer. They said it was
chemical poisoning. My little Scottie dog died of the same
thing. Until then, I'd had no thought at all about the water
being contaminated."

Cancer-causing chemicals were found in the property's private
well--selenium, chromium and arsenic, among others. And J.
Wesley Cooper, who had lived in pristine isolation surrounded by
sycamores and wild turkeys at his 76-acre Adams County estate,
soon discovered he wasn't alone. A neighbor had lost 15 cows and
two horses. Many of the children in the new brick homes along
Pine Ridge were sick. Cooper came back from surgery and went to
war. 

"Come along, I'll show you the culprit," he says, corralling
Lisa Spruill, an investigator with the Mississippi Attorney
General's office and Linda King, southern coordinator for the
Citizen's Clearinghouse on Hazardous Waste into his already
crowded yellow Lincoln Continental. Cooper's toxic tour leads
the group to the edge of the property, where scattered ravines
filled with mounds of tires, piles of metal debris and oozing
barrels poke through the thick carpet of kudzu vines. Armstrong
Tire claims it quit dumping here in 1972, "but we know it
continued until '82," says Cooper, striding along with the
carved stick rattlesnake deterrent he calls his "snake hopper."

Two weeks ago, Cooper and Greenpeace's John Liebman were here
with a back hoe, digging up buried waste barrels. Wilma Subra,
head of an environmental consulting business in New Iberia,
Louisiana, tested their contents and found dangerous levels of
chromium, cadmium, barium and mercury, but the Mississippi
Bureau of Pollution Control says there is "no apparent" and "no
imminent" health threat (two phrases that Cooper and his army
would like to see eliminated from the English language). As a
result of their digging, however, Armstrong Tire's parent
company has been ordered to clean the site and test the ground
water for contamination. 

That night, Cooper and his allies attend the first Natchez/Adams
County Hazardous Waste Congress, where it becomes apparent that
Cooper's property is not the only abandoned industrial dump site
in the Natchez region of the Mississippi basin. Between 20 and
30 others have been identified in the last two years, including
several used by Armstrong Tire. "Will Natchez become like the
dozens of other towns in the U.S. ? Towns like Love Canal, Times
Beach, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, Jacksonville? Where people are
leaving their homes and investments because it comes down to
either your money or your family's health?" Linda King asks the
hundred people in the audience.

"Eventually, this will affect others outside Natchez," she
continues, "because the rivers, canals, streams and aquifers are
all connected. The only way to win this fight is to stand
together as a united community, to force the state government to
clean up these sites and give the citizens compensation."

Willie Fontenot, long-time environmental watchdog for the
Louisiana Attorney General's office, speaks next. Louisiana, he
points out, inherits all of the problems that originate
upstream, and it adds a chilling agenda of its own. At least 136
industries line the banks of the Mississippi along the 150-mile
stretch from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, a vista the EPA calls
"one of the largest concentrations of chemical plants in the
world." 

According to the Sierra Club, a mere 18 of these industries in
a region south of Baton Rouge released almost 200 million pounds
of toxic chemicals into the air in 1986. In the same year, the
club reports, at least 252 million pounds of carcinogens,
mutagens and embryo toxins were dumped into the river by 15 of
the industries in Louisiana's "petrochemical corridor."

To add to the problem, Fontenot continues, a handful of
Louisiana fertilizer plants want to rid themselves of several
years' accumulation of waste by pouring it into the Mississippi.
"Now here," he says, gesturing to a slide projected on the wall,
"is one of the stacks of gypsum waste that has radium-226 and
other pollutants in it. They want to dump this all into the
river untreated." The piles of debris, towering as high as 70
feet, have been accumulating for 15 years since the EPA banned
river dumping in 1973. Fertilizer production wastes, in the
words of one Tulane environmental law professor, are "gangbuster
pollutants." 

This relentless pressure on the lower basin ecosystem has had a
profound effect on the health of the people. One and a half
million people in southern Louisiana get their drinking water
from the river. A more wary sector of the population has made
New Orleans the nation's largest consumer of bottled water. In
thirteen of the parishes that take their water from the river,
death rates for several types of cancer are among the highest in
the nation.

THE MISSISSIPPI HAS ALWAYS BEEN the catalyst for community. The
pulse of its floods and droughts and the force of its
meanderings have galvanized people along its banks for
centuries, uniting them at times in crisis and scarcity, but
more often in prosperity and abundance.

The toxics crisis has changed the pitch of the battle. Those who
gather for the sake of the river are no longer united against
its natural, if destructive, proclivities. They are combating
the social, economic and political arrangements that have led to
its decline. The conflict, in this case, was created by people--
the Mississippi River is at most an unwitting accomplice.

"We're in this for the long haul," says Corinne White head.
reflecting both her commitment to the cause and the immensity of
the job she has taken on. Activist groups like the Coalition for
Health Concern and J. Wesley Cooper's neighbors begin at home
with grassroots organizing, while also lobbying for progressive
state and national legislation. They are working to complete and
strengthen the Mississippi River Interstate Pollution Phase-out
Compact, an agreement that has been signed by all the states
bordering the river except Arkansas and Mississippi.

"I think we already have the tacit support of the whole area,
but it is a rather silent majority so far," Whitehead muses,
glancing toward the Tennessee River flowing slowly toward its
meeting with the Mississippi. "But I never expect to be popular
for speaking out. It doesn't make any difference if they support
me or not, really." She paused a moment, and the sound of the
water filled in the silence. Then quietly, "You just keep on
keepin' on." 

Dick Russell is a free-lance writer specializing in
environmental issues. 


BRIEFINGS

ANOTHER SCANDAL AT SELLAFIELD 

THE STREAM OF UNNERVING REVELATIONS from the United Kingdom's
dirty and dangerous reprocessing operation continues. This year,
three workers from British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.'s (BNFL)
Sellafield Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Plant came forward to
Greenpeace, divulging a litany of health and safety violations
at the aging facility. At a press conference in June, two of the
witnesses were forced to testify in disguise, as their
revelations could be considered a violation of Britain's
Official Secrets Act. ("Official secrets," under this broadly
written 1911 statute, can be anything from a defense plan to
what the Queen had for lunch. )

Their testimony revealed that the plant is guilty of ongoing
health and safety malpractices and of failing to report nuclear
accidents and fires. Radiation film monitoring badges often were
not worn or were "lost" by management, especially on occasions
when the men had good reason to believe they received high
radiation doses--after emergency clean-ups, when alarms were
sounding, and when they were only allowed to work in an active
area for very reduced time spans.

They reported major accidents during shutdowns in April and June
of 1987, when diamond drillers broke through concrete, releasing
plutonium contaminated dust, water and solvents. The workers
cleaning up the mess were reportedly endangered as air supply
systems, airlock tents and a vacuum cleaner were either
overloaded or malfunctioning. In other instances, workers doused
fires manually, wearing only overalls and dust masks, because
sprinkler systems malfunctioned. None of these accidents appears
to have been reported to the proper authority, the Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate (Nil).

While accidents can be covered up, the aftereffects--
radioactive contamination-- cannot. Sellafield is responsible
for making the Irish Sea the most radioactive body of water in
the world. Much of the radioactivity stays concentrated around
the Cumbrian coast, where plutonium levels in the silt are
20,000 times greater than normal and the incidence of cancer is
two-and-a-half times the national average. 

Residents of Cumbria and eastern Ireland (across the Irish Sea
from Sellafield) are tired of being radiation victims; they want
the plant closed. Christopher and Christine Merlin are suing
BNFL for the poor price they fetched for their Cumbrian home,
after high concentrations of radioactive plutonium were found in
their carpets and vacuum cleaner. And Irish lawyers may sue the
United Kingdom in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
But they'll wait to see the outcome of a similar lawsuit pressed
by Luxembourg against the French government for a leaky nuclear
reactor.

THE TRASHING OF AFRICA 

IN MAY, THE TINY PORT OF KOKO, NIGERIA, was the unwilling
recipient of about 4,000 tons of industrial and nuclear waste
forwarded by Italian expatriate Gianfranco Raffaelli, a twenty-
year resident of Nigeria. His construction firm, looking for a
more lucrative business venture, applied to the Pharmacist Board
of Nigeria to import nine "non-explosive, non-radioactive and
non-self combusting" industrial chemicals. What he brought into
the country was toxic waste, including methyl Melamine, dimethyl
formaldehyde ethyl acetate formaldehyde, polyurethanes, and
about 150 tons of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), one of the
world's most toxic industrial wastes. 

When the scheme was made public, Mr. Raffaelli fled the country,
15 alleged accomplices were arrested, and the chief spokesman
for President Ibrahim Babangida threatened execution by firing
squad for anyone found guilty of importing toxic waste for
profit.

Dumping waste in Africa and other developing and cash-starved
nations is emerging as the disposal method of choice for
developed countries neck-deep in toxic and radioactive wastes.
In May,15,000 tons of Philadelphia incinerator ash were dumped
on the Guinean Island of Kassa. Benin recently confirmed two
shipments of nuclear waste from France, and a half-dozen other
African dumping agreements are being negotiated. 

Saddled with debt, developing nations are naturally tempted by
waste deals to bring in much-needed currency and often aren't
told about hazards to agriculture and human health. Profits from
converting a piece of real estate into an international dump
site can total several times a nation's annual export earnings.
At the same time, such arrangements are a windfall for the waste
dealers and the industrialized countries squeezed by rapidly
mounting disposal costs. What might cost between two and ten
dollars a ton to dump in Africa can cost $160-$1,000 a ton at
home--even more for extremely hazardous chemicals like PCBs. 

"Exploiting poverty in the developing world to dispose of
poisonous waste is an international crime," says Green peace
activist Jim Vallette. "No monetary sum can offset the
inevitable damage to human health and the environment." Says
Sunday Nana, owner of the compound holding Nigeria's newly
acquired waste pile, "The odor comes to the compound. It is
everywhere. But to be sincere, it has not worried my health. l
even walk into the place with bare feet. My children do the
same."

CURE WORSE THAN THE DISEASE 

HERBICIDES ARE THE WEAPONS OF CHOICE against crop pests
throughout the agricultural world--in the U.S. Last year, more
than $4 billion worth of various poisons were spread to keep
down weeds. The practice poses a serious threat to the
environment; problems associated with herbicide abuse include
ground water and soil contamination and potentially serious
human health effects. 

At one time, recombinant DNA research, the controversial
technique of combining genetic material to produce wholly new
organisms, suggested a way out. Genes could be manipulated,
proponents said, to permit plants to defend themselves from
plant and insect pests in ways that would lessen our dependence
on agrochemicals. While the opposition to genetic engineering
takes many forms, few were inclined to condemn this line of
inquiry.

Not any more. In May, the Monsanto chemical company field tested
a genetically manipulated strain of canola, a variety of rape
seed used for cooking and salad oil. But the genetic engineering
in this case was not done to fortify canola against natural
enemies, but against an artificial one--Monsanto's own best-
selling herbicide, Roundup. The logic, from Monsanto's point of
view, is indisputable: if commercial crops can be engineered to
resist the effects of powerful plant killers, then higher
yields, and higher sales of Roundup, are inevitable. 

Monsanto is not alone. Today, the research priority in the
international agricultural industry is to develop chemical
resistant plant variations. In this way, pesticide companies can
ensure increased markets for their products. "The ideal thing
for some chemical companies," Sheldon Krimsky, formerly a
government adviser on biotechnology told the Wall Street
Journal, "is to make everything dependent on chemicals so that
when you buy the seed you have to buy the chemical."

Chemical company spokes people dismiss environmentalists'
concerns, arguing that matching plants and chemicals through
genetic engineering could ensure that the most benign chemicals
come into use. But critics remain unconvinced. They point out
that Atrazine, a herbicide found in drinking water supplies and
suspected of having adverse health effects, is one of the
herbicides that biotechnologists are working on to match with
food crops. "This is an unfortunate first use of biotechnology,"
says Jack Doyle, director of the Agricultural Resource Project
at the Environmental Policy Institute. "More than 30 companies
are devoting their research efforts to pesticide resistance,
primarily because of the money that can be made selling a seed-
and-chemical package to growers. It is going to continue our
dangerous chemical approach to agriculture rather than end it." 


CAMPAIGNS

SIRIUS FOR NUCLEAR FREE SEAS

IN VIOLATION OF ITALIAN SOVEREIGNTY and public assurances to the
contrary, nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missiles are
regularly stationed in Italian ports as well as transferred to
and from U.S. submarines and U.S. warships. Italy's predicament
reflects the contradictions between the anti-nuclear laws and
sentiments in many European countries and the defacto
nuclearization of their ports by visiting U.S., French and
British warships that refuse to divulge whether or not they
are nuclear-armed.

A briefing paper released by Greenpeace and the Institute for
Policy Studies in June reveals that the USS Orion and the USS
Frank Cable were modified in 1985 to carry sea-launched cruise
missiles (SLCMs). It also documents that 20 of these missiles
were transferred to and from submarines at Sardinia in 1986, and
14 were transferred in 1987. Apparently, SLCMs have been based
in Italy since 1985. 

In June, Greenpeace activists aboard the Sirius braved sirens,
fire hoses, and patrol boat rammings to tie a symbol supporting
the denuclearization of the seas--their "yellow submarine"--to
the anchor chain of the USS Frank Cable. This submarine tender
is based in La Maddalena, Italy, and carries and services U.S.
"Tomahawk" SLCMs.

"Bringing the dangerous SLCM into Italian waters goes against
the promises of both the U.S. and Italian governments," said
Greenpeace Italy spokesman Luca Sabatini. "Ground launched
cruise missiles are being removed from European soil, but sea
launched cruise missiles are secretly sent in to replace them.
This is against the spirit of the INF Treaty and is a deception
of the Italian people by the U.S. and Italian governments, which
have consistently denied the presence of SLCMs at La Maddalena."

In a similar protest on June 10, the Sirius and four of her
inflatables intercepted the U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier Dwight
D. Eisenhower in Spain's Palma de Mallorca harbor in support of
Spanish laws prohibiting the introduction of nuclear weapons
into their national territory. And in the Tunisian Gulf of
Hammet, Greenpeace activists called attention to the hundred or
so nuclear weapons floating in a single square mile by painting
radiation symbols on the hull of the Soviet nuclear carrier Baku
and the U.S. nuclear frigate Thomas C. Hart.

MARINE MAMMAL TALKS CONCLUDED 

SIX MONTHS OF SOMETIMES DIFFICULT NEGOTIATIONS between the
United States' fishing industry and a Greenpeace-led coalition
of environmental groups have resulted in an historic agreement:
a package of recommendations to the U.S. Congress on the
reauthorization of the Marine Mammal Protection Act that allows
commercial fishing to continue and provides protection for
marine mammals. 

The agreement calls for a new observer program that will place
government inspectors on a portion of the domestic fishing fleet
to record interactions, injuries and fatalities of marine
mammals. All the data collected on population status and
accidental deaths of marine mammals will be made public. And the
fishing industry has agreed to fund an education program to
teach fishermen how (and why) to avoid killing seals, porpoises
and sea lions. 

At the same time, the number of Steller's sea lions the fleets
are allowed to kill in the course of their fishing operations
has been cut in half. Fines for failing to report injuries have
been increased, and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service
is being asked to produce recovery plans, including possibly
establishing habitat protection zones, for the harbor porpoise,
the northern fur seal, and Steller's sea lions.

Two issues remain unresolved: the dolphin/tuna fleet conflict,
in which tens of thousands of dolphins are caught and drowned by
tuna purse seining operations, and the bid from some fishing
interests to shoot "nuisance" marine mammals thought to be
interfering with fishing operations. Green peace and its
coalition allies oppose "nuisance" killing as a misguided
attempt to improve fishing, and they plan to push for strict
control on the tuna purse seiners when Congress takes up the
reauthorization later this year.

PLUTONIUM OVERKILL 

LET'S SEE NOW. With a healthy injection of political will and
public pressure, the U.S. and the Soviet Union may conclude a
major nuclear arms control agreement within the next few years.
In the meantime, U.S. supplies of plutonium, the primary
ingredient in nuclear warheads, are plentiful--in existing
weapons, in warheads shelved due to arms control or
obsolescence, and in reserve or scrap stockpiles. And the U.S.
has one 30-year old plutonium production reactor mothballed in
Washington state and is pressing to build another one in South
Carolina.

It wouldn't seem the time, then, to spend $1 billion of
taxpayers' money to build a plutonium manufacturing facility.
Yet that is exactly what the Reagan administration has in mind.
With the backing of Idaho legislators and the Department of
Defense, the Department of Energy (DOE) wants to begin
construction on the Special Isotope Separation Project (SIS) at
the 890-square mile government-owned Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory (INEL). The SIS project would use a new laser
technology to refine spent nuclear fuel from the government-run
Hanford Nuclear Reservation into weapon-grade plutonium.

Besides exacerbating INEL's existing environmental problems
(plutonium contaminated waste pits left over from past
activities sit atop the region's aquifer), SIS would add to the
growing national radioactive waste pile, for which a safe
resting place has yet to be found. And the money could be better
used elsewhere; the costs of cleaning up the mess left by DOE's
other nuclear weapons production facilities has been pegged at
upwards of $100 billion.

DOE admits there is little justification for the plant. "The SIS
is not designed to meet a well-defined need," says Dan Ofte,
DOE's operations manager in Idaho. When pushed, officials argue
that the facility would provide "redundancy," acting as a hedge
against a future plutonium shortage. But the source of SIS's
spent fuel, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, will run dry in six
to eight years, meaning that the facility would have to shut
down or turn to refining spent fuel from commercial power
plants. This last option is a violation of the United States'
nonproliferation policy, as it breaches the division, in place
since the 1950s, between commercial and military nuclear
programs. 

In short, SIS should not be built. Says Theodore Taylor, former
Defense Department nuclear weapons designer, "no credible
conditions exist under which plutonium from SIS would be needed
for national security reasons." Greenpeace is a member of a
coalition of environmental and arms control groups, called the
Plutonium Challenge, that is urging the U.S. government to
challenge the Soviet Union to put plutonium production on hold.
And local groups in Idaho have been running a high profile
lobbying and public education campaign against SIS in
preparation for hearings in Washington, D.C., next year.