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KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Dallas Morning News
Copyright (C) 2003 KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Anti-Terror Bill Targets Chlorine.
By Jim Morris, The Dallas Morning News.
Apr. 15-WASHINGTON-Fifteen months ago, Wichita, Kan., rid itself of a chemical time bomb.
The menace had existed in the form of highly toxic chlorine gas, kept in 1-ton steel cylinders at a city sewage treatment plant. It was eradicated when the plant was converted to a far safer method of wastewater disinfection: ultraviolet light.
Chlorine costs less than UV light, and it remains the more common choice for
the nation's water and sewage treatment facilities.
Nonetheless, Wichita officials decided in 2000 that the potentially lethal gas
had to go, given the proximity of homes to the plant. Other cities are
following suit, particularly in an era of heightened concern about terrorism.
The move away from chlorine - still not feasible in Dallas, according to a
city official - figures into the debate over chemical security legislation
pending in Congress. Some lawmakers say they want to encourage safer
alternatives to chlorine, but chemical manufacturers counter that other
choices are more expensive and more of a threat to public health.
Sens. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and John Edwards, D-N.C., whose bill would require
facilities that make or store certain quantities of chlorine and other
compounds to consider safer methods, say they are working to reduce the
exposure for an industry that poses an attractive target for terrorists. They
say they are not waging a surreptitious attempt to wean the chemical industry
of substances such as chlorine, long targeted by environmentalists because of
its persistence and its links to cancer and other health problems.
There is no "anti-chemical agenda," Mr. Corzine told reporters recently. The
aim, he said, is merely to tighten security within a "highly exposed part of
our infrastructure" by having facilities perform vulnerability assessments,
draw up emergency response plans and, when possible, start using safer
materials.
Chemical industry representatives - especially those who represent chlorine
interests - aren't buying it.
Kip Howlett, executive director of the Chlorine Chemistry Council in
Arlington, Va., said the Corzine-Edwards bill would lead to "environmentally
based regulation that isn't really relevant to the security debate."
Ultimately, he said, it could weaken the economy and threaten public health.
"Forty-five percent of the products in the gross domestic product are products
of our chemistry," Mr. Howlett said. He noted that chlorine dioxide was used
to decontaminate a Senate office building after an anthrax-laced letter was
opened there in 2001 and that a chlorine-based antibiotic, Cipro, was used to
treat those exposed to the deadly bacteria.
Instead of "blindly adopting" legislation that would jeopardize beneficial
uses of chlorine and other chemicals, Mr. Howlett said, Congress should follow
the model it used to buttress airline security. Chemical plants could be
hardened against attack, just as cockpit doors were fortified and passenger
screening was enhanced, he said.
There's no reason to vilify the chemicals themselves, Mr. Howlett said,
pointing out that no one suggested banning commercial airline travel after the
Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings. Members of the chlorine council already have done
vulnerability assessments and strengthened security, he said, and are willing
to do more.
Mr. Corzine, however, observed that 123 facilities in 24 states store
compounds so hazardous that an unplanned release at any could imperil the
lives of 1 million or more people. As a result, he said, it is necessary to go
"beyond fences and cameras" and look to "inherently safer technologies."
The biggest users of chlorine - sewage and drinking water treatment plants -
are watching the policy debate closely.
Some, such as the District of Columbia's massive Blue Plains sewage plant,
have abandoned chlorine gas in favor of more benign sodium hypochlorite -
liquid bleach. The gas had been brought to the plant in 90-ton rail tanker
cars, on tracks running close to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and other
government installations.
"Needless to say, our neighbors were very pleased that we discontinued that
practice," said Libby Lawson, a spokeswoman for the District of Columbia Water
and Sewer Authority. "We had to rearrange a few of our [economic] priorities,
but, obviously, it can be done."
Dallas' two sewage and three water purification plants use chlorine gas. Four
of the five plants are in suburban areas.
Consultants have concluded that it would not be economical - in the near term,
at least - to convert the plants to either ultraviolet light treatment or
sodium hypochlorite, said Charles Stringer, the city's assistant director of
water operations. Transportation costs for the liquid bleach, for example,
would be higher than what Dallas pays to bring in chlorine, he said.
Moreover, Mr. Stringer said, chlorine is a more potent disinfectant - a factor
that must be considered in light of water-quality regulations and the size and
configuration of the Dallas system.
Dallas gets its chlorine in 90-ton rail shipments and 28,000-pound truck
shipments, Mr. Stringer said. The chlorine is stored in buildings equipped
with scrubber systems to absorb the gas if it leaks. Access to the plants is
strictly controlled, he said.
"I think we feel comfortable that what we're doing is appropriate," Mr.
Stringer said.
Two trade associations representing wastewater and drinking water plants say
there is no right or wrong approach to the chlorine issue. The American Water
Works Association and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies are
leery of the Corzine-Edwards bill, believing it would force their members to
duplicate costly and time-intensive vulnerability studies they have already
completed. In the case of sewage plants, the studies were voluntary; for
drinking water plants, the studies were required under bioterrorism
legislation approved last year.
A sewerage association spokesman, Adam Krantz, said there also is concern
about the "safer technologies" aspect of the legislation. He acknowledged that
the bill would require facilities only to consider alternatives to chemicals
such as chlorine, but, he said, "the question becomes, who is going to oversee
whether or not you've sufficiently considered your options? I'm not sure it's
that clear."
Some call such hand-wringing unnecessary, saying many cities and companies
have distanced themselves from noxious compounds without harming operations.
In New Jersey, for example, 475 of 580 high-hazard chemical facilities
originally covered by the state's 1988 Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act have
changed their practices and been freed from those regulations, said Fred
Mumford, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection.
Every sewage treatment plant in the state - along with a "significant number"
of drinking water plants - has switched from chlorine to either sodium
hypochlorite or ultraviolet, Mr. Mumford said.
Carol Andress, an economic specialist with the advocacy group Environmental
Defense, said of the holdouts that remain in other parts of the country:
"We've got to get these guys over their resistance to any kind of innovation.
We can even show cost-effectiveness in a lot of cases."
Resistance was not a problem in Wichita three years ago. The main worry was
that a tornado would cause the 43-year-old sewage plant's storage tanks to
rupture, said James Tush, the city's superintendent of sewage treatment.
"At no time was it considered a terrorism issue," Mr. Tush said. "Had 9-11
already happened, it probably would have made our choice even easier."
Officials there were mulling whether to revamp Sewage Treatment Plant No. 2
with a new chlorine system or install UV lamps. Engineers determined that a
chlorine system would cost about $750,000 - about $250,000 less than a UV
system.
Although there had never been a serious chlorine leak at the plant and there
was no community pressure to change, the decision wasn't difficult, Mr. Tush
said.
"We have neighborhoods within three-eighths of a mile of that plant," he said.
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