Female Or Male Homeowners from the Love Canal Neighborhood

Witness Profile Female or male homeowners from the Love Canal neighborhood

Background

Picture this: back in the 1970s you and your family had been living happily in a quiet neighborhood near Niagara Falls, N.Y., for roughly 20 years. The neighborhood of Love Canal had around 800 homes, many with families just like yours. Life was great, aside from the strange odors that sometimes came from the ground near the playground or the neighborhood yards. After many complaints, the city finally hired an investigator to assess if there was any problem. What they found was chilling to you – there were high levels of toxic chemicals found in the canal, the soil near the canal and the sump-pump in your basement.

What you know

Suddenly you began to question the health of your child (who has been sickly since they were born), the seemingly higher level of cancer in your neighborhood and the many miscarriages your family has had since you moved to the neighborhood. Concerned that the chemicals found might be related to the health problems, you immediately contact the school board and request that your child be transferred to another school, but your request is denied. Soon other neighbors start to ask similar questions and a course of events is set in motion that will change your life forever.

The city offers to buy the homes of the Love Canal residents who are closest to the cancel site, but yours is not one of them.

You form a community action group to demand justice.

Eventually the city agrees to purchase all the homes in the neighborhood and everyone moves away. Unfortunately, the nightmare isn’t over, since you and your family still have to deal with the effects the toxic chemicals had on your body.

Because of the disaster and the community organization around it at Love Canal, the EPA creates the Superfund.

What you feel

You feel angry at the companies who irresponsibly dumped the toxic waste. You are also angry at the city and the government for not taking the complaints seriously for years while you and the people in the neighborhood became sick from exposure to the chemicals. You felt helpless to solve the problem at

first, but now you feel proud about your role in prompting the creation of the Superfund, so it is less likely that others will have to go through the same nightmare you and your family did.

What you want to have happen

You would like to see even more being done by the government to combat the problem of toxic waste management. You also feel that the companies who dumped the toxic waste deserve enormous fines and should be forced to pay for the clean-up process until the Superfund site is safe once again.

Evidence you will share with the class

During your testimony you will share the New York Times video on the Love Canal. It is 11 minutes long. Watch it prior to class to learn more about your background and the disaster at Love Canal.

The Love Canal Disaster: Toxic Waste in the Neighborhood from the NY Times http://bit.ly/1fKNvfT

Other suggested resources to help you prepare:

Center for Health, Environment and Justice: http://bit.ly/1ideDaR

Witness Profile Average U.S. teenager #1 & average U.S. teenager #2

Background

You are an average teenager living in the United States. You get average grades at the high school that you attend and think that school is “okay”. You have a pretty decent car and boyfriend/ girlfriend. You’ve been using computers and cell phones for as long as you can remember and can’t imagine life without them. They aren’t just for your personal life either – your teachers expect you to turn in work that is typed or emailed in. You used to like Facebook until your parents started using it and now you think it’s lame. Instead you use Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, and recently you helped your Mom get on Pinterest. You spend a lot of time on your iPad since your little sister always wants to play games on the family computer.

What you know

You would probably die without your phone. You rarely talk on it a lot, but you are always texting and are on social media with your friends 24/7. You have to do your assignments on your computer or your teachers take off points. When you grow up you know you’ll be using a computer for everything, and businesses will expect most programs to be second nature to you. You recycle and bike to school so you feel like you your part to support the environment. You have no idea that the production of the microchips inside your phone and computer created waste so toxic that it can cause birth defects, injure and even kill people who are exposed.

What you feel

If someone were to ask you to give up your computer and your phone you would ignore them no matter the reason why. In the larger picture of the environmental health of the U.S., you feel helpless. Plus you aren’t a scientist, you didn’t directly cause the problem yourself and you feel like there really isn’t anything that you can do that will make a difference.

What you want to have happen

You would like to be able to have electronics that don’t create toxic chemical byproducts. You might even be willing to pay a tiny bit more for the product if it could prove it didn’t hurt the environment while being made. You would also like to find a way to help improve the environment in your own community. It would be empowering to know that you could make a difference now.

Evidence you will share with the class

Show them your phone and something you created on a computer (paper, website, etc.)

Witness Profile EPA Superfund expert

Background

You work for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the lead spokesperson for the Superfund program. You have a background in engineering and environmental science and are a pretty good teacher when it comes to explaining what a Superfund is.

What you know about Superfund: What is a Superfund?

Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. It is also the name of the fund established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as amended (CERCLA statute, CERCLA overview). This law was enacted in the wake of the discovery of toxic waste dumps such as Love Canal and Times Beach in the 1970s. It allows the EPA to clean up such sites and to compel responsible parties to perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanups.

How a Superfund works

The Superfund cleanup process is complex. It involves the steps taken to assess sites, place them on the National Priorities List and establish and implement appropriate cleanup plans. This is the long-term cleanup process. In addition, the Agency has the authority to:

 conduct removal actions where immediate action needs to be taken  enforce against potentially responsible parties  ensure community involvement  involve states  ensure long-term protectiveness

What you know about the overall situation

country treks and treatment plants that produce as much greenhouse gas as municipal power plants.  Cleanup at the Silicon Valley site, and others like it, isn’t working. Over the past decade, the pollution there has remained stagnant despite constant pumping. In some cases, the treatment is actually increasing the pollution in the water.  The costs of treating the waste are enormous. To continue cleanup at sites like this, the EPA estimates taxpayers will spend between $1.2 billion and $3.6 billion over the next 30 years. That doesn’t include the untallied billions more spent by private companies tasked with cleaning up their past messes.

What you feel

You feel very proud of the work you do. It may not be a perfect solution, but it’s the best system out there to identify dangerous Superfund sites and to attempt to clean them up. You are aware that there are major drawbacks to the current program, see above, but again, it’s better than nothing and you would welcome more funding that would allow for more research on the effectiveness of the currently recommended method and novel treatments that haven’t been tried out yet.

What you want to have happen

You would like more people to share the responsibility for the problem – it shouldn’t all rest on the EPA. You anticipate new environmental research to improve clean-up of Superfund sites in the near future and would like more resources for the EPA to deal with the current 1,300 Superfund sites around the country.

Evidence you will share with the class

B. There's a map showing all the Superfund sites in the country. You can search for them using ZIP code and type.

E. There is a historic chart showing how many Superfund sites are added within the U.S. every year.

Witness Profile EPA pump and treat expert

Background

You work for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the lead engineer for their pump and treat system. You have a background in engineering and environmental science and are a pretty good teacher when it comes to explaining what you do.

What you know

 Waste begets waste. At every step along the trail, treatment leaves behind a new batch of waste that needs to be shipped somewhere else. At one stop, a plant in Wisconsin creates more waste than it takes in.  Treatment creates new hazards. The superheating used to release toxic chemicals in Kentucky gives way to an equally alarming danger that isn’t monitored: dioxins. After they escape the plants, dioxins can build up in the food supply and have been linked to cancer and birth defects.  The system is highly inefficient. For every five pounds of contaminants pulled from the ground, roughly 20,000 pounds of carbon dioxide are produced from continually running pumps, cross- country treks and treatment plants that produce as much greenhouse gas as municipal power plants.  Cleanup at the Silicon Valley site and others like it isn’t working. Over the past decade, the pollution there has remained stagnant despite constant pumping. In some cases, the treatment is actually increasing the pollution in the water.  The costs of treating the waste are enormous. To continue cleanup at sites like this, the EPA estimates taxpayers will spend between $1.2 billion and $3.6 billion over the next 30 years. That doesn’t include the untallied billions more spent by private companies tasked with cleaning up their past messes.

You are also aware of the recent article from CIR and The Guardian which describes the pump and treat system as follows:

Pump and treat’s effectiveness

The EPA has had concerns for the past two decades about whether pump-and-treat systems work in the long run.

It’s also aware of the unintended consequences of the toxic trail. But the agency doesn’t know how to deal with them, its own documents show.

Of its more than $8 billion annual budget, nearly $1.2 billion goes to the Superfund program. That includes funding for roughly 3,000 full-time jobs.

In a 2012 report, the EPA issued guidelines to minimize the environmental footprint of Superfund cleanups. The agency now measures the toll a cleanup has on water, energy and air at each site. But agency officials said it was too difficult to get their arms around all the different side effects once the waste leaves.

They don’t take these consequences into consideration when looking at the cleanup’s environmental costs.

The system continues to run on inertia. The EPA is concerned about toxic vapors harming residents and workers. Companies already have invested heavily in the systems in place.

The agency takes a passive approach when it comes to what kind of treatment gets used. It’s up to the companies to push for change, which is often a long and arduous process.

Some do take that initiative. At the Silicon Valley site, Intel abandoned pump and treat years ago in favor of trying bioremediation, which injects chemical-eating microbes into the ground.

Others prefer sticking with a status quo that complies with the decades-old EPA’s plan.

“They may not wish to rock the boat with something new because it may not work,” said Harris- Bishop, the EPA spokesman. He added that changing the EPA’s cleanup plans “is a long a bureaucratic process.”

Some of the companies cleaning up the Silicon Valley site claim their work continues to reduce contamination.

“The remedy is performing as intended,” stated company officials for Schlumberger Ltd., in its 2012 annual report to the EPA. The company assumed responsibility for the site when it took over Fairchild. Schlumberger officials didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

There’s also an active community of residents that continue to put pressure on regulators to cleanup by any method available.

Soon after Google set up a satellite campus in Mountain View in 2012, toxic vapors from contaminants underground infiltrated the company’s offices, exposing employees to potentially dangerous levels of TCE.

The vapors are especially harmful to pregnant women. If exposed to low levels of the chemical during a crucial three-week period in their first trimester, women face an increased risk of having a baby born with holes in the heart, an EPA analysis found.

Most of the site doesn’t pose a health risk because contamination levels are so low. Even if treatment stopped at most of the site, there are three hot spots that would likely still need some treatment to protect people above.

Lenny Siegel has organized an effective and vocal group of fellow residents to lobby for cleanup.

“At a recent meeting, I compared the technical challenges of groundwater cleanup to rocket science,” Siegel said. “Then, looking around the room, I noticed that a large fraction of the community representatives actually were rocket scientists.”

People like Siegel encourage the EPA to try alternative treatments that don’t contribute to the toxic trail. But more than anything, he wants the EPA to focus on the hot spots. He and his allies want cleanup to continue, regardless of the method.

That means the waste will continue to go somewhere else.

What you feel

You feel extremely frustrated and defensive about the pump and treat process since it was recently revealed that the treatment may not be working at all. You are trying your hardest to find a solution, but for now all you can do is continue to use the pump and treat method. Also, you don’t have the budget to try anything else. If people really took your job seriously they would set aside much more money to invest in research to improve upon the current pump and treat system.

What you want to have happen

You would like people to stop pointing fingers at you for the failings of the pump and treat system. Instead, you would like some respect for what you are already doing to solve the problem and for others to pitch in as well.

Evidence you will share with the class

C. There is a feature breaking down the 'pump and treat' process that you will share with the class

Witness Profile EPA chemical specialist #1 (dioxin and Trichloroethylene (TCE))

Background: You work for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the resident chemical expert on dioxin and Trichloroethylene (TCE). You are not only a chemist, but also a strong advocate for cleaning up the environment. Part of your job includes educating others about the dangers of these two chemicals.

What you know dioxins:

Dioxins form during the superheating process and can escape the plant through vents and openings. They eventually trickle down into water, soils and plants. People are exposed as the chemicals build up in the food supply. Animals such as cows, chicken and fish eat contaminated grass or feed, and then people eat those animals.

Dioxins have been linked to cancer and reproductive harm in humans and animals, and are prevalent in the environment and food supply. For instance, one study showed that women in Seveso, Italy, who were exposed to high levels of dioxins after a chemical explosion were significantly more likely to have cancer. Other studies have shown higher levels of tumors in the liver, lung, tongue and thyroid in animals that were fed food contaminated with dioxins.

People don’t need to live anywhere near an incinerator to be exposed to dioxins, which can be carried great distances by the wind. For instance, the Inuit, people native to the Arctic Circle, live thousands of miles from most dioxin sources. But they have some of the world’s highest concentrations of the contaminants in their bodies because their diet is rich in animal fat.

The handful of treatment plants that handle waste like Silicon Valley’s are significant sources of dioxins, the EPA says. But it’s difficult to measure precisely how much dioxin they contribute to the environment. The plants aren’t required to report releases of dioxins and regulators haven’t researched the issue since 1987.

Bart Schaffer, supervisor of the corrective action section of Kentucky’s hazardous waste branch, said the state’s regulators don’t focus on dioxins released by facilities like Calgon, but they could soon. He compared it to the lack of attention once given to the chemicals that are now being removed from Silicon Valley.

“It’s just not something we are familiar with,” Schaffer said. “It’s like TCE in the 1970s.”

What you know about TCE:

What you feel

You believe it is important to educate others about the problems toxic chemicals like dioxin and TCE can cause to a person’s health. You feel that it is a worthy cause to learn everything you can about these chemicals in order to provide the public with the best information possible- it might save lives.

What you want to have happen

You would like more people to share the responsibility for the problem – it shouldn’t all rest on the EPA. You would also like to receive more funding so you can do more research on toxins and hopefully discover a solution to limit their existence.

Evidence you will share with the class

D. There is an interactive or set of graphics showing how the chemicals that seep into the ground make it into peoples' food

Witness Profile EPA chemical specialist #2 (carbon)

Background

You work for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the resident chemical expert on carbon emissions. You are not only a chemist, but also a strong advocate for cleaning up the environment. Part of your job includes educating others about everyone’s responsibility to limit their own carbon footprint.

What you know about carbon

Carbon is an element found all over the world and in every living thing. Oxygen is another element that is in the air we breathe. When carbon and oxygen bond together, they form a colorless, odorless gas called carbon dioxide, which is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas. Whenever we burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas—whether it's to drive our cars, use electricity or make products—we are producing carbon dioxide.

The atmosphere isn't the only part of the Earth that has carbon. The oceans store large amounts of carbon, and so do plants, soil and deposits of coal, oil and natural gas deep underground. Carbon naturally moves from one part of the Earth to another through the carbon cycle. But right now, by burning fossil fuels, people are adding carbon to the atmosphere (in the form of carbon dioxide) faster than natural processes can remove it. That's why the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, which is causing global climate change.

Here is what you know about carbon’s role in the Superfund clean up process from the CIR/Guardian article:

Clean up of Silicon Valley’s Superfund site takes environmental toll: winding trail of carbon footprints

Each step along the trail comes with its own carbon footprint.

First there is the energy required to pull the waste out of the ground. For all the pump and treat cleanup systems nationally, the EPA estimates that more than 356,000 tons of carbon dioxide are produced each year. That’s about the same amount emitted by 16,000 U.S. homes annually.

Then there’s the shipping footprint of all that waste once it’s removed.

For every shipment of waste sent from Mountain View, Calif., to Kentucky, for example, more than 3 tons of carbon dioxide are generated, according to Art Hirsch, president of TerraLogic, an engineering consulting service.

It’s unknown how many shipments leave Superfund sites. Company records provide a glimpse for one small part of the Silicon Valley site.

In 2010, at least 12 cross-country shipments of waste were sent from one area at the Silicon Valley site, resulting in roughly 40 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

It doesn’t end there. Greenhouse gas emissions are also created once the waste gets to the treatment plant.

The Arizona carbon regeneration facility produced the annual emissions of an oil or gas-burning power plant, according to an analysis compiled for the EPA’s Superfund division. It concluded that for every five pounds treated, 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide are produced.

In total, the effort of pulling about 900 pounds of contaminants from one area at the Silicon Valley site, shipping it thousands of miles and treating it in Kentucky contributed to more than 40 million pounds of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere in 2010.

That’s roughly equivalent to 12,500 cars idling for a day-and-a-half, said Jack Clayton, president of BlueSkyModel, a climate-change-consulting firm.

This could be an acceptable risk, if it were actually making the water cleaner. But it’s not.

Now play this TED Ed video for the class: The carbon cycle - Nathaniel Manning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4cPmHGegKI

What you feel

You believe it is important to educate others about carbon and how it affects the environment. You are worried what will happen to the world if we continue to produce carbon emissions at such a high rate. You would like to see citizens and the government commit to finding and adopting a solution to this problem.

What you want to have happen

You would like more people to share responsibility for the problem – it shouldn’t all rest on the EPA. You would also like to receive more funding so you can do more research on carbon and limit its role in global climate change.

Evidence you will share with the class

F. There is an interactive showing how large a 'pound of carbons' is

K. Video on the carbon cycle from the EPA http://youtu.be/vrDekmRbBVk

Witness Profile Spokesperson from Intel & spokesperson from Fairchild Semiconductor

Background

From the CIR/Guardian article Toxic Trail

The evolution of the tech industry can be traced through the Mountain View, Calif., site’s inhabitants.

Intel Corp. and Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. began making computer chips in the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay in the 1960s and ’70s, an area that became known as Silicon Valley after the silicon used in producing the chips. Later, AOL Inc. and Netscape moved into the area and helped shape the Internet boom during the 1990s and early 2000s. Now, Symantec Corp., a computer security company specializing in antivirus software, calls it home. Google has a satellite campus here, just a few miles south of its headquarters down Silicon Valley’s main artery, Highway 101.

Back when Intel and Fairchild were making the first mass-produced computer chips, they used solvents such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and benzene to degrease the chips. The cancer-causing chemicals leaked into the ground and polluted the soil and water below. The companies who created the problem are now responsible for cleaning it up.

Today, a swimming pool is being constructed alongside shiny new buildings and massive outdoor sculptures. Tree-canopied walkways lead from one high-tech campus to the next, and the only indication as to what lies below is the steady whir of pumps, strategically placed around the site to suck the polluted groundwater out of the earth. This is known as “pump and treat,” a pillar of Superfund’s cleanup efforts.

The Superfund program began in 1980, after a valley of leaking chemicals in the small upstate New York community of Love Canal drew attention to the dangers of living near toxic waste. The program provided funding and the infrastructure to clean up toxic sites across the country.

In most cases, the companies responsible for the pollution pay the tab. Intel, Raytheon Co. and Fairchild are long gone from the Silicon Valley site, but are still footing the bill for cleanup. They don’t have to disclose how much they spend, but one internal presentation from the companies noted that the costs to clean the site surpassed $100 million from the early 1980s to 2003.

What you both know

You represent the companies Intel Corp. and Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. and speak on their behalf about the tireless efforts and endless fortune they have spent cleaning up the toxic byproducts of the computer chips they manufactured in Silicon Valley decades ago. It is true that the companies made bad

choices at the time, but how could they have known the profound damage they would cause the environment? Today Intel and Fairchild continue to make microchips and other products that are in high demand because of the population’s reliance on technology. You have cleaned up your practices in the United States and try to abide by the current EPA laws and regulations.

What you both feel

It can be frustrating to be singled out and labeled as the companies who destroyed Silicon Valley’s drinking water and environment, but you believe you are making a difference by continuing to pay for your mistakes. You also feel that it is unfair to be given all the blame for the Superfund disaster in Silicon Valley when it was the U.S. population’s unquenchable thirst for electronics that helped your business expand in the first place. Additionally, you shouldn’t be held fully responsible for the current state of Silicon Valley, when it is the EPA who is in charge of the cleanup – you just pay the bill.

What you both want to have happen

You would both like it if others took their fair share of responsibility for the toxic waste crisis in Silicon Valley. You would like to improve your reputation from being the “bad guys” to being seen as “good guys” who have been doing the right thing for decades.

Evidence you will share with the class

To help the court understand what kind of environment the early Silicon tech industry was like, play this short preview from the PBS American Experience’s Silicon Valley. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/trailer/silicon-valley-preview/

Witness Profile Management from the Calgon carbon regeneration facility in Catlettsburg, Ky.

Background

From the CIR/Guardian article Toxic Trail

To tell this story, CIR followed one route taken by one stream of toxic waste after it left Silicon Valley.

The first stop on the trail: the Calgon Carbon Corp.’s Big Sandy plant. It’s a rusty, incongruous complex of smoke stacks, conveyer belts and sheet metal sitting along the western bank of the Big Sandy River in Kentucky, more than 2,500 miles from Mountain View, Calif.

Once a shipment of hazardous waste arrives at Calgon, it’s unloaded into a pit. From there it’s fed into a towering furnace that burns day and night, every day of the year. The extreme heat inside approaches 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, separating the toxic chemicals from the filters.

The process leaves behind toxic ash and other newly contaminated filters.

For every five pounds of hazardous waste that arrives here, an additional pound of new waste is created that needs to be shipped to a different plant.

There are also the pollutants that escape into the air and water.

One of those is a class of chemicals called dioxins, which are on the EPA’s list of “dirty dozen” dangerous chemicals.

Environmental violators

To clean up places like Silicon Valley, waste gets sent to plants that have violated the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws.

Last year, Calgon agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle charges that it sold hazardous waste byproducts instead of disposing of them properly. The company did not admit to wrongdoing.

On top of that, facility operators dumped 540,000 gallons of hazardous waste into the Big Sandy River in 2011. In 2009 and 2010, Calgon polluted the river with oil, grease and fecal coliform, state records show. On four separate occasions, the company exceeded its pollution limits. In each case, state regulators found no direct harm to people or the environment.

Marv Church, Calgon’s environmental and safety director, said the company didn’t conduct any follow- up testing.

“There was nothing to test. There was a black streak in the river, and once it was gone it was gone,” he said.

The Big Sandy plant is one of four carbon regeneration facilities licensed to treat hazardous waste in the United States. Two other plants are in Pennsylvania – one in Darlington and another on Neville Island outside Pittsburgh. The fourth is on Native American tribal land outside Parker, Ariz. They all accept and treat Superfund waste from across the country.

Back in Mountain View, the companies have their pick of which facility gets their waste. The companies don’t have to disclose where they send it, but company records shed some light on the flow.

Since 2009, Calgon’s Big Sandy plant has accepted 25 tons of hazardous waste from the site. Calgon said it doesn’t know exactly how much of the waste it receives from Superfund sites as a whole, but current and former employees estimate it’s about 10 percent of all waste that arrives there annually.

Calgon has accumulated more state and federal environmental violations in the past five years than its competitors. But these plants are just the first stop in this trail of waste. Calgon sends most of its waste 300 miles north to the Detroit suburb of Belleville, Mich.

What you know

Your facility is one of four of its kind in the entire U.S. It is a difficult and dirty job that still needs improvement, but you do the best you can with the incredibly toxic waste that comes through your facility. You are frequent violators of the EPA’s Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws, but since you are the only game in town people don’t have much of a choice. You are aware that process you use to regenerate carbon causes a deadly byproduct – dioxin – but until somebody figures out a better and cheaper way to clean Superfund sites, you stand by what you do.

What you feel

It feels totally hypocritical for the EPA to be slapping you with fines and groups like CIR and the Guardian to criticize what you do to the public. Your whole mission is to make the toxic waste companies and the public create less toxic, but all you seem to get are barbs from environmental groups about the way you run your plant. If they have a better way to deal with Superfund toxic waste you’d love to hear it.

What you want to have happen

You would like for the public to see you as a part of the solution instead of part of the problem. If the EPA or other scientists would develop better and cheaper ways to clean Superfund waste you’d be happy to change how you do things. In the meantime you’d like a little more patience and understanding for the situation you are in. There are many situations that we face that we don’t know how to handle, and our mistakes our honest ones that we try not to repeat.

Evidence you will share with the class

Show the class how small your role in the cleanup process really is – so your blame should also be small.

G. There is a chart showing who oversees what part of the cleanup (designating site, finding parties, hiring contractors, waste extraction, transporting waste, storage and disposal, cleanup

Witness Profile Management from the Michigan Disposal Waste Treatment Plant in Belleville, Mich., run by the Environmental Quality Company

Background

From the CIR/Guardian article Toxic Trail

The Michigan Disposal Waste Treatment Plant was on the EPA’s Watch List for suspected chronic violators of environmental laws from October 2012 through last June. Then, owners paid the federal agency nearly $400,000 to settle violations of its hazardous waste permit. Inspectors found the facility disposed of hazardous waste without properly treating it.

Such violations, while not desired, are a natural consequence of the waste treatment industry, a spokesman for Michigan Disposal said.

“We’re trying to do a good thing for the environment,” David Crumrine said. “There’s no way to snap your fingers and make this waste go away.”

Road to toxic cleanup

Every month, blue tanker trucks with Calgon’s logo emblazoned on the side begin a northward journey, through the main streets of Ashland, Ky., past its pawnshops, vacant apartment buildings and fast-food restaurants. Once across the state border, the road winds through central Ohio’s expanse of rest stops, agricultural fields and arena-sized churches.

Nestled between Interstate 94 and the Willow Run Airport, the 500-acre Michigan plant and landfill sit just off a rutted asphalt drive warped by the constant stream of 18-wheelers trampling over it. On Monday mornings, trucks idle outside the facility waiting to dump waste.

Here, the ash and dirty filters from Calgon undergo the next round of treatment. In some cases, the waste is infused with chemicals that break it apart. In others, it’s put in a hot furnace and blasted with oxygen to create less harmful chemicals.

The waste is mixed with thousands of other loads of hazardous waste, including some laced with mercury.

These methods, in turn, create their own hazardous byproducts. Just as Calgon’s superheating process can release dioxins, so, too, does the heating used in thermal oxidation.

In addition, for every 5 pounds of waste that arrives at the Michigan plant, 2.75 pounds gets created. The amount of waste is reduced. But it’s not eliminated.

“They are reducing the toxicity of the waste. Even if they end up increasing the volume of waste that came in, as long as they are reducing the toxicity we’re OK with it,” said Mike Ellenbecker of the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

Ultimately, the trail doesn’t have a single end point. Plants continually accept, treat, generate and then ship waste elsewhere to any number of different destinations. The result is a web-like network that spans the United States. On a map, it looks like fireworks bursting from treatment plants, igniting new sparks as it moves along the trail.

What you know

You accept the U.S.’s tons of hazardous materials from carbon regeneration plants like Calgon’s in Kentucky. Your plant is challenged to remove some of the worst toxic chemicals like mercury that no one else wants to deal with. Although your work actually causes more waste, you stand by what you do because there aren’t really any alternatives.

What you feel

You think it’s unfair to be targeted as environmental violators when you are actually playing a role in detoxifying the waste created by consumers who demand the latest and greatest in technology. You also feel like it’s unfair to point fingers when your state is accepting waste that others would never allow.

What you want to have happen

You would like a more positive image when it comes to how the public sees you and your work. You would like for the EPA to take the lead in researching new ways to clean toxic Superfund waste that are cheaper and cleaner.

Evidence you will share with the class

Show the class how small your role in the cleanup process really is – so your blame should also be small.

A. There's an interactive that shows how chemicals from one plant are moved to treatment facilities and waste facilities all over the country, showing how geographically distributed the problem is.