(4 of 6)
Others insist that the answers are not so straightforward. Subsidiaries of American firms claim that they generally rely on existing specifications of domestic plants to design foreign ones; there are no structural discrepancies between the two. Where the factories differ is in the local conditions: petrochemical facilities in the U.S. are often strategically placed in remote areas; when a factory is built in a developing nation, it may start out in an isolated spot, but needy workers soon gravitate toward it in search of a job. What is more, with superior roadways and familiar emergency procedures, potential U.S. victims are more easily evacuated from a hot spot. After a train loaded with a toxic brew of chemicals derailed in Louisiana two years ago, 2,700 inhabitants of the nearby town were moved out almost immediately. Says Martin Henry, director of field services for the Boston-based National Fire Protection Association: "People were evacuated within an hour and kept away for two weeks."
Ironically, government has policed industry less effectively than industry has policed itself. One good reason: safety pays. The fewer accidents, the lower the medical costs and worker compensation insurance payments, and the less labor time lost to recovery. Says Jeffrey Leonard, a senior associate at the Conservation Foundation in Washington: "Safety centers a lot more on human procedures than on the question of regulation."
Not so the cost of environmental controls and cleanup, which may be why long-term toxic-waste problems are more consequential issues than unusual disasters. Environmentalists stress that worries about the big blowup should not distract attention from the regulations and enforcement needed to beat back the world's ever growing piles of poisonous and nuclear sludge. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. industry, from the giant conglomerates to the local dry cleaner, annually produce some 90 billion lbs. of toxic wastes, laced not only with familiar poisons, including arsenic and mercury, but with exotic ingredients like trichlorophenol, used in the manufacture of herbicides.
Regardless of their potency, only 10% of the chemicals are disposed of properly; the rest are dumped as conveniently as possible: into rivers, inadequate landfills, abandoned mine shafts, old missile silos, swamps and fields. The Natural Resources Defense Council in New York estimates that there are as many as 50,000 toxic-waste dumps around the U.S. At least 14,000 of these sites are or soon could be dangerous; their contents are dripping into soil or water supplies. The full effects of these gradual seepages may not be felt for ten to 15 years, the time it takes for some cancers to be recognized.