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Lawmakers, Industry Debate Plan to Deter Chlorine Use
BY JIM MORRIS
The Dallas Morning News
(KRT) - 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 one-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 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 "antichemical agenda," 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," 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, 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, 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.
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 Washington, D.C.'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."
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, 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," 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, Tush said.
"We have neighborhoods within three-eighths of a mile of that plant," he said.
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© 2003, The Dallas Morning News.
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