Hazardous Wastes Only

The University's award-winning recycling program collects 45 to 50 tons of paper each week, representing a quarter of all Penn's generated waste. The placement of the familiar white recycling bins is almost uncanny -- no pun intended. I always find myself within two-point range of an aluminum recycling bin just as I am finishing a soda. Thanks to hardworking student groups and Coordinator Albert Pallanti, recycling at Penn is a success. But there's more to keeping our habitat liveable and healthy than recycling. Handling hazardous and radioactive materials is another big part of Penn's responsibility to the environment, and it's a part you can't manage with plastic 55 gallon garbage cans, no matter how well-placed they are. Every day researchers at Penn work with caustic, volatile, pathogenic and even infectious lab materials, materials which pose a serious potential threat to our campus environment and to the surrounding residential neighborhoods. As members of the University community we should be concerned about the management and control of these wastes, just as we are concerned about not putting envelopes with windows in the "White Ledger Only" bin. Hazardous waste management is something we take for granted at the University, assuming that someone somewhere is looking after it. For the most part, that assumption is just fine with University administrators, who would like you to rest assured that hazardous wastes are not an issue on campus. But lately, in conjunction with plans for the proposed Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, administrators have broached the subject of the risk that hazardous wastes pose to our community. These materials, and the risk they pose to the community, are a big part of the reason that the University is insisting on that Smith Hall, which is adjacent to the existing chemistry building, be the site for the new Institute. "Much of the work that will be performed in the Institute will involve the use of potentially hazardous materials, including radioactive substances," wrote Vice-Provost for Research Barry Cooperman in a 1990 draft statement for the new facility. "Such materials will frequently have to be transported from one laboratory to another . . . Having a set of physically linked buildings will allow the safe transport of such materials, eliminating the risk of surface transport." Though Cooperman and other University administrators only raised the issue of hazardous materials to strengthen their case for the site they want, they may have opened a whole new can of worms. Many University community members now want to know more about the nature and extent of the risk these materials pose. "What is so special about these hazards?" Professor Emeritus Robert J. Rutman asked in response to the draft program statement. "What are the kinds of hazardous wastes that would require this kind of meticulous control and centralized facilities?" What indeed? Both Cooperman and University Director of Environmental Health and Safety Matthew Finucane assured me, in a qualified way, that the University expects no new or different kinds of hazardous materials to be used immediately at the proposed IAST. They do not expect that the IAST will, at the time of its opening, be involved in the use of infectious materials, for example, as the Biomedical complex is. The Institute will not built with laboratories equipped to handle such materials. But, Cooperman cautioned, the IAST is being designed to be flexible. He wouldn't want to close any doors on the kind of research that might be done there in the future. So we should bear the risks of hazardous material in mind when we are thinking about the building's site, but forget about them otherwise? "Trust us," University administrators have asked on more than one occasion. "Work with us." And since we believe that a mysterious body of laws and agencies -- EPA, OSHA -- oversee the management of hazardous materials anyway, many of us do trust the University to undertake projects appropriately that use or generate hazardous materials. Unfortunately, we can't count on as much governmental guidance as many of us would like, or in fact, as many of us believe we get. The agency designed to protect our environment has no teeth in this matter. The EPA cannot require the University to undertake a thorough study, called an Environmental Impact Statement, of the proposed IAST. Only a federal funding agency can require his study, which would explore the potential and actual changes to the physical and social environment caused by the construction of the new building. The federal agency funding the IAST is the Department of Defense, and it seems unlikely they will require an Environmental Impact Statement for the IAST. The don't even think that bombing has a negative impact on the environment. As a matter of fact, even University officials don't know whether they will have to undertake this study. So much for the watchful eye of the federal government. The environmental impact of the proposed IAST on our busy campus of 35,000 people, is between Penn, the Pentagon, and God. Why can't University administrators take the most responsible course of action and file an Environmental Impact Statement without waiting for it to be required? Do they have something to hide? Are they trying to postpone decision making about the kind of materials used at the IAST until the project is less controversial? The University community must hold the administration accountable for the decisions it makes about hazardous wastes on campus. No one will do it for us. But as the recycling program has shown us, we can make a difference. Elizabeth Hunt is a doctoral student in History and Sociology of Science from Bloomington, Indiana. One Man's Meat appears alternate Wednesdays.

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