The first incinerator, described last week, was in the South Bronx. It was shut down by community organizing.

The second incinerator is located on Seattle's Beacon Hill, at the Veterans' Administration (VA) Hospital. Beacon Hill is 65% people of color, mostly Asian-Pacific Islander, and, like the South Bronx, it is full of children. The area falls within the notorious 98108 zip code, home to numerous EPA and WA Department of Ecology-designated environmental health hazard sites. The median income on Beacon Hill is below that of Seattle as a whole.

Kristine Wong of the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice says, "Comparing the Beacon Hill neighborhood health profile to that of Seattle as a whole as well as to other neighborhoods indicates a larger asthma hospitalization and cancer death rate."

The VA incinerator was installed in 1986, without a permit and with minimal pollution controls, according to Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency Director of Compliance Jim Nolan. Since its inception, the VA incinerator has racked up nearly $50,000 in fines for regulation noncompliance.

Wong says the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice (a people-of-color-led organization based in Seattle) and Beacon Hill community members called for a meeting with the VA to discuss concerns about the incinerator. Rather than acknowledging the source of the request, the VA chose instead to correspond with Physicians for Social Responsibility. The race, gender and class bias the VA exhibited in that action seems clear to this writer.

According to Albert Kaufman, a Beacon Hill resident who was present at the June 8, 1998 meeting, the VA chose to put on a parade of experts and officials, leaving almost no time at all for the community to voice its concerns nor to ask its questions.

According to the VA itself in a presentation given at that June 8 meeting, the incinerator releases dioxin, particulate matter, hydrogen chloride, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, mercury, lead and cadmium, all of which are hazardous to many life forms on planet Earth.

Not only is air quality of concern, but some residents are alarmed that the VA and its incinerator are located right next to the reservoir that provides drinking water to all of Beacon Hill.

Tay Quach, a Chinese-American professional translator/interpreter and a Beacon Hill resident since 1991, says she didn't know about the incinerator until community organizers brought the issue to her attention. "This is bad for all the people living on Beacon Hill. Chemicals it spits into the air are no good for our health. I want the incinerator shut down."

State Representative Velma Veloria, a long-time Beacon Hill resident, agrees. "I am concerned about the incinerator because of the added environmental impact it has on our community and the potential health risks our citizens are facing ... Our neighborhood is already heavily suffering from pollution caused by the SeaTac International Airport, King County International Airport, Boeing test grounds, the industrial zone, I-5, and the 25 toxic sites in the 11th District. The incinerator cannot be seen as one separate issue, but as an added burden that places our residents at risk."

The Beacon Hill Community and CCEJ have held monthly meetings on the incinerator issue prior to and since the June 8th presentation by the VA. They plan to continue knocking on doors in the residential areas surrounding the incinerator. Many community members are posting lawn signs that read, "Shut Down the VA incinerator!" Long-time residential neighbors of the VA are participating in the campaign by attending meetings with local politicians on the issue and writing letters to the VA to inform them of their desire to shut down the incinerator.

The coalition has joined Seattle Health Care Without Harm, a group comprised of numerous community, environmental and health advocacy organizations "working to end the unnecessary and obsolete practice of medical waste incineration nationwide..." The coalition also plans to do outreach to VA workers.

Nina Laboy, our source of information about the incinerator in the South Bronx, organizer of the incinerator protest there, and now a member of CCEJ, made a presentation at one of the community meetings about the VA incinerator. Laboy feels the Beacon Hill neighborhood has to look at where the money is coming from. "Since this is the VA hospital, the money is probably coming out of the taxpayers' pockets. What is this incinerator costing us as taxpayers? Why aren't they autoclaving [which is less costly and far less toxic than incineration]?"

An incinerator operator and strong unionist who prefers to remain anonymous feels the incinerator is safe. Apparently, the VA passes the tests for dioxin emissions and the particulate matter falls into a closed-barrel system which nobody breathes, including the workers. The gases go through a water filtering process. While the incinerator is operating, readings are taken every two hours to make sure the temperature is at a maximally safe level. The hospital separates the wastes, including plastics (the main source of dioxins in the incineration process), which get shredded, compacted and hauled away. Not only that, but incinerator operators are personally liable for up to $5000 per incident if they are found to have been involved in a practices that could lead to violations of environmental standards. However, this same incinerator operator concedes that this incinerator has never been suited to the particular conditions at the VA.

Laboy thinks that the burden of proof of damage done by the Beacon Hill incinerator should not be on the community, but on the facility. "In our neighborhood in the South Bronx we had higher asthma, lung disease, and cancer rates. I understand that's also the case here on Beacon Hill. The burden of proof is always on the community. The fact that they've [the VA] been cited [for emissions violations] is proof enough."

The next community meeting about the VA incinerator will be Saturday, September 12 from 10 AM to 12 PM at the Jefferson Park Community Center, 3801 Beacon Avenue South. A Community Forum/People's Hearing on Medical Waste Incineration at the VA Hospital will be held on Saturday, September 26, 1998, from 11 AM to 2 PM at the Jefferson Park Community Center. [By the time this article was written, the VA had not responded to the invitation to attend this meeting.]

For more information or to become involved, contact Kristine Wong at the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice at 206-720-0285, or visit the Beacon Hill Community's incinerator info website at: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/commnty/beacon/va.htm.;