Explosion of a Toxic Time Bomb

New Jersey blaze spotlights growing problem of chemical waste

For nearly a decade, residents of grimy Elizabeth, N.J., had been complaining about the fumes emanating from the Chemical Control Corp.'s waterfront facility, where thousands of barrels of chemicals had been illegally stored. For nearly a year, New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection had been working to clean up the mess, and had removed some 10,000 barrels of the most toxic or explosive substances. Despite the department's efforts, though, some critics branded the facility the Three Mile Island of chemical dumps, and others described the remaining 24,000 or so waste-filled barrels as a potential bomb.

Last week the bomb went off. About an hour before midnight, the area was rocked by two small explosions. A moment later, residents of Elizabeth and neighboring Staten Island, N.Y., were jolted by a third blast, which sent a fireball hundreds of feet into the air. Some 30 people were injured, and the blaze that followed burned for more than ten hours before exhausted firemen were able to bring it under control. "I thought it was the end of the world," said Ralph Spinelli of Staten Island, who stood on his porch and watched 55-gal. drums fly into the air and burst like bombs. "I think it's a miracle that no one was killed."

Elizabeth authorities mobilized the town's entire 250-man fire department as soon as the blaze began. Because dangerous nitric and picric acids, pesticides and plasticizers were stored at the burning dump, officials also closed public and private schools in both Elizabeth and Staten Island, and urged residents to stay at home and keep windows closed.

At week's end temperatures in the dump, an estimated 2,400DEG F during the height of the fire, were still too high for investigators to begin looking into what had caused the initial explosions. No sooner had the blaze been brought under control than New York officials began worrying about a similar site in Staten Island and another less than a mile from Shea Stadium in Queens. "We are," said one New York environmental official, "sitting on a chemical powder keg and watching the fuse burn."

New York's situation is not unique. As Journalist Michael Brown points out in a new book, Laying Waste (Pantheon; $11.95), the entire U.S. is dotted with chemical dumps. Most may never explode, but many are slowly leaking their toxic contents into the soil and the water that flows through it, thus threatening the health of generations to come. Says Brown: "We have planted thousands of toxic time bombs; it is only a question of time before they explode."

Brown knows his subject. As a reporter for the Niagara Gazette, he broke the story of the Love Canal disaster, revealing how chemicals buried in an abandoned waterway were leaking into homes and were suspected of causing health problems, from respiratory and liver ailments to birth defects.

Unfortunately, Love Canal is only the tip of a tremendous toxic iceberg. A 1978 Environmental Protection Agency study identified 32,254 toxic waste dumps around the U.S., some 800 of which posed "significant imminent hazards" to public health. Brown demonstrates that the chemicals in these sites have already begun to take their toll.

In Iowa, Tennessee, Massachusetts and New Jersey, toxics such as benzene, carbon tetrachloride and trichloroethylene--all known or suspected carcinogens --have seeped into ground-water supplies. "Thousands throughout the U.S. have been drinking water fouled by metals, pesticides and potentially cancer-causing solvents used to cut oil and grease," Brown writes. "In such a milieu, it is not surprising that the U.S. finds itself today in the throes of what can only be termed a cancer epidemic."

As Brown notes, removing these threats to health is bound to be costly. Finding safe ways to dispose of toxic chemicals can substantially affect the profits of many U.S. industries. Cleaning up the dumps that already exist will cost billions. Thus far, action to control toxic chemical pollution has been slow and sporadic. Accidents similar to that in New Jersey may speed up the process. Even as Elizabeth was cleaning up after its fire, a chemical plant in neighboring Bayonne released a toxic cloud of its own and forced officials there to evacuate, temporarily, an 8-sq. -mi. industrial area. -

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