The Town that Hates Al Gore

EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio -- They gathered outside the school administration building, drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and chatting in the bright autumn sunlight while awaiting Ralph Nader's arrival.

There was an old man known locally as Klein, a "true West Virginia hermit" according to a neighbor, who has few teeth and a half-dozen cars propped up on concrete blocks at his mountaintop property across the Ohio River.

There were mothers, fathers and elderly citizens who, after nearly twenty years, have made their fight against the Waste Technologies Industries incinerator in this old Rust Belt town the longest-running active environmental battle in the country.

There were a dozen WTI workers, some in blue workshirts with their names embroidered above the breast pocket, looking skeptical and defensive. There were supporters of Nader's Green Party presidential candidacy from Pittsburgh and environmental activists from southern Ohio. And just over a thousand feet behind all of them, the incinerator's smokestack blew billows of fumes into the sky.

"There, it's diving, look at that," one man said, pointing to the smoke as it shot up and then curled back down toward the valley, illustrating what opponents say is a geographical pollutant trap penned in by mountains on all sides. The WTI incinerator is one of the largest of its type in the world, burning 60,000 tons of hazardous waste annually since 1993, and has attracted attention most recently as a symbol of Vice President and Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore's alleged inconsistency on environmental issues.

During the 1992 presidential campaign while the incinerator was in construction, Gore came to East Liverpool, lambasted the project and promised that "the Clinton-Gore administration is going to give you an environmental presidency to deal with these problems."

During the subsequent transition between the Bush and Clinton administrations, however, trial-burns were conducted and the incinerator was enabled to begin operating despite tests that determined toxin levels beyond the Environmental Protection Agency's own standards.

Nader slammed Gore for what he called the "phony populist rhetoric" of his environmentalism, and called on the Vice President to honor his eight-year old promise to hold the incinerator to EPA standards.

"Al Gore knows how to talk the talk on issues of the environment and public health but when it comes time to stand up to corporate power and get results, he won't even attempt to walk the walk," Nader said. "Eight years of lying have illustrated what a certified public coward he is. If Al Gore was a business practice, he would be prosecuted by the federal trade commission as a 'deceptive trade practice.'"

The Gore campaign says the East Liverpool facility is no longer an "official issue." This year, Gore environmental officials have said the plant is running safely, that he never really promised to shut the plant, only look into its safety and that the previous Bush administration tied its hands by issuing a permit in the final hours.

"Gore did call for an investigation," spokeswoman Maria Meier told the San Francisco Examiner this month. "But after review, the White House eventually sided with the plant and found they were in compliance."

Some activists described a web of corruption linking powerful government officials and industry heavyweights in Ohio, New York, Washington and even Arkansas as the enabling force behind WTI. "Because of what we know about all the legalities involved in the permitting process," said Richard Keith Wolf, a local environmental activist, "this facility could not have come into existence or remain operational without there being collusion and conspiracy at the highest levels between government and industry."