Household Hazardous Waste in Racine County
By John Berge, Group Conservation Committee Chair

Mercury, lead, cyanide, insecticides and herbicides, acids and alkalis
and volatile organic solvents, carcinogens and poisons. Any or all of
these may be found in your home or that of a neighbor. Because of these
Household Hazardous Wastes (HHW), Racine County should have regular,
multi-site, county-wide collection and disposal of HHW. This is the
position taken recently by the Group’s Conservation Committee (ConCom)
and approved by the Group’s Executive Committee. Work towards this has
already started.

Such collections are often referred to as “Clean Sweeps”, but this has
also been the designation of very occasional collections that have
waited for a grant from the state and served only a single municipality.
Collections should be on a regular basis so that citizens can plan ahead
for proper disposal of hazardous items and not have to store them for
long and unknown times. It is generally believed that the average
citizen is not going to travel more than 10 miles to get rid of small
amounts of HHW, which would also be wasteful of time and gasoline. One
should not buy more than what is needed, but there will always be some
HHW to dispose of.

One of the first steps taken by the ConCom was a letter to the Public
Works Committee of the Racine County Board, at their chair’s request,
asking that they propose to the County Board a regularly scheduled,
multi-site, county-wide collection and disposal of a broad list of HHW.
Members of the ConCom met with the Public Works Committee on Thursday,
February 28. Our proposal was well received by the Public Works
Committee, and a good discussion was held with considerable additional
data supplied to them. Unfortunately, at the end of the discussion, the
Director of Public Works pointed out that this Committee was not
authorized by the Rules of the Racine County Board to initiate any
program relating to solid waste. Therefore, the Chair of the Public
Works Committee said he would refer our letter and proposal to the
County’s Planning and Development Committee which is authorized by those
rules. The ConCom hopes to meet with them later. All of this is further
confounded by the reorganization of the County Board on April 16, after
the spring elections.

After the letter was sent, the ConCom and Group Chair Dana Huck wrote a
Commentary that appeared February 17 in Racine’s the Journal Times
calling for a HHW program to cover all of Racine County.

Another early step was the invitation to John Reindl, Recycling Manager
for Dane County and a long time activist in the John Muir Chapter of the
Sierra Club, to speak at the February 21 general meeting of the group.
Those who weren’t there missed an excellent presentation on what Dane
County is doing about HHW and some of what is being done in other
counties around the state, costs, participation, types of materials
turned in, recycling where possible, and proper disposal. Invitations
had been sent out to 150 elected officials and public health
professionals throughout the county, but only four or five plus a
candidate came to the meeting.

Reindl said that Dane County has a permanent location on County property
that is open from early May until late October, Wednesday through
Saturday. It is closed in the winter because they do not have an indoor
location as does Brown County which operates year around. They also have
a mobile unit which visits the west end of Dane County once a year. The
ConCom is suggesting that Racine County have a mobile unit that would
visit three or four locations in the County on successive Saturdays.
Possibly Racine on the first Saturday of the month, Sturtevant or Union
Grove on the next, Burlington on the third Saturday and Waterford on the
fourth. Obviously this would be negotiated by the communities involved.
We also are suggesting that this mobile unit be staffed by trained
professionals from a waste management company under contract to the
County as is done in Milwaukee County and elsewhere.

The ConCom letter suggested an expanded list of materials to be accepted
by the collection unit including “organic solvents, pesticides and
herbicides, paints, acids, alkalis, other hazardous chemicals,
mercury-containing products including fluorescent lamps, etc.” Paints
made up 79% of the 400,000 to 500,000 pounds of material collected last
year in Dane County. While much of this is latex paint which is
generally considered non-toxic, much of it is recycled to painting
contractors, local governments and individuals who can use whatever
color happens to be available at any particular time. Oil based paints
and stains are similarly used where ever possible. Reindl says they
discourage, through public education, the bringing in of latex paints
but they do not refuse it because people frequently bring in other HHW
at the same time. In Dane County last year, 67% of the materials brought
in were exchanged or recycled and thus kept out of the waste stream.

Dane County does not accept fluorescent bulbs because there are five
locations in Madison which already recycle the mercury from such bulbs.
The ConCom knows of only one in Racine County so this would be a
worthwhile service to the communities. In 2000, Dane County collected
708 pounds of mercury from other sources (thermometers, silent switches,
thermostats, etc.) Using a recent estimate of the environmental cost of
mercury in the environment of $15/gram or $6,800 per pound, the
environmental cost saved by collecting those 708 pounds was over $4.8
million!

Dioxins were calculated to be 3.8% of the material brought in, generally
arriving in pesticides. Since the environmental cost of dioxins are
considered to be 20,000 times that of mercury, the savings to the
environment are truly monumental. But these costs are often lost in the
political discussions that arise whenever a new program is proposed. The
cost of operating the Dane County Clean Sweep program has varied over
the last three years from $273,000 to $292,000 which sounds like a lot
of money, but there are 200,000 households in Dane County concentrated
in the Madison area. Thus the cost per household is less than $1.50 per
year. Since not every household brings in HHW, the cost per household
participating is considerably higher, but it must be remembered that
every household gains by the collection and proper disposal of every
pound of HHW which thereby does not contaminate our water, air and
municipal waste dumps.

Dane County also has a “VSQG” program one day per week. VSQG stands for
Very Small Quantity Generators and represents small businesses, farms
and municipalities that either have less than 2200 pounds of hazardous
waste in storage or generate less than 220 pounds in any one month.
These businesses or “non-household units” incur considerable expense
properly disposing of their hazardous waste by themselves. Through the
VSQG program, they can bring their waste into the Clean Sweep Center,
paying the much lower cost of disposing of the waste collectively and
also supporting the HHW program. Last year, Dane County charged an
average of $1.28 per pound for disposal which brought in $41,767 in
revenue and earned $30,536 for Cleansweep.

Most of the above data come from Dane County which finances its program
with an additional $2.50/ton tipping fee at the county-run land fill.
Other counties handle it differently. Kenosha County adds a $0.30 per
month surcharge onto the water and sewage fees and are running at a
profit, but only serve that portion of the county served by the Kenosha
Water and Wastewater Treatment facility. The ConCom suggest that this
program be paid for from the County’s general revenue. Because of its
small size on a per household basis it might well be listed on the tax
bills separately as “Clean Air and Water”. This would avoid the
extensive bookkeeping that would be required to assign the costs to the
municipalities of the participating households on a per pound or per
visit basis, as was suggested by the Racine Wastewater Commission report
that came out last year.

At least nine counties have permanent site Clean Sweep programs and
sixteen others have ones without a permanent site. The three counties in
the Southeast Gateway Group area are not among them, although part of
Kenosha County is covered and there are Agricultural Clean Sweeps once a
year. Shouldn’t our air and water be protected better than that?
Shouldn’t your County Supervisor know how you feel about this?


Calendar:

April 11: Southeast Gateway Group Executive Committee Meeting, 7:00 p.m.
at Messiah Lutheran Church, corner of Durand Avenue and Pritchard Drive
in Racine.

April 18: Cathy Rose will speak about international trade agreement and
the threat to our environment, specifically the water in the Great
Lakes. Southeast Gateway Group General Membership Meeting, 7:00 p.m. at
Gateway Technical College, Academic Building, Room 127, 3520 30th Avenue
in Kenosha.

April ?: Southeast Gateway Group Conservation Committee Meeting, 7:00
p.m. at the Berge's, 1529 Crabapple Dr. in Racine. Contact John Berge,
(262) 633-8455 to be notified of the date of this meeting.

April 20: Highway 38 cleanup. Meet at Bob and Betty Gericke’s house,
3927 North Lane, just off Highway 38 north of Highway K, at 9:00 a.m.
for issuance of equipment and assignment of territory. A pot-luck lunch
will follow. We need many hands to get the job done in a reasonable
time. Call Bob and Betty at (262) 886-9057.

May 1: Deadline for the June-July Southeast Sierran.

May 9: Southeast Gateway Group Executive Committee Meeting, 7:00 p.m. at
Messiah Lutheran Church, corner of Durand Avenue and Pritchard Drive in
Racine.

May 16: Chris Zieman, transportation policy and outreach coordinator for
the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison will discuss
transportation and the environment Southeast Gateway Group General
Membership Meeting, 6:00 p.m. dinner meeting at the Cottonpicker
restaurant, 210 S. Brown’s Lake Drive in Burlington (Corner of Hwy. 36
and CTH W). Call Roz McHugh, (262) 694-3351 for reservations.


May 16: Dinner Meeting at the Cottonpicker

This will be a social evening to accommodate our western members. The
speaker will be Chris Ziemann on “Transportation and the Environment.”
We are certainly being greatly affected by highway development and
growth in Southeast Wisconsin. This is of great concern for all of us.
Chris will explain how the Wisconsin environment is affected by our
transportation policies. Chris is from the UW-Madison Center on
Wisconsin Strategy (COWS).

Cottonpicker Menu: 4 entrees from which to choose: Filet Mignon, Broiled
Pike, Barbecued Ribs or Vegetarian Primavera. Cost $19.00. All entrees
include cheese and crackers, soup, salad, baked potato and dessert, plus
beverages. Price includes tax and tip.

Call Donna at (262) 637-3141 or Roz at (262) 694-3351 for more
information.


Recipes Wanted!

As a fundraiser, the Southeast Gateway Group (SEGG) of the Sierra Club
is going to create a cookbook. We would like everyone, members or
non-members, to send us recipes. They can be camping recipes or your
home kitchen favorites.

We will also try to get recipes from local restaurants for a third
division in the cookbook.

Please send recipes to: Nita Larson, 1512 Chat-ham Street, Racine, WI,
53402. We hope to get the cookbook started soon, so hurry, hurry, hurry!



SEGG Needs You!

The Southeast Gateway Group has been invited to co-sponsor an Earth
Day Workers Memorial Day event on Sunday, April 28, beginning at 9:00
a.m. at Petrifying Springs Park in Kenosha County. We will be cleaning
the park, planting trees and flowers. A special tree will be planted in
remembrance of September 11. A short program is planned for 11:30 a.m.,
followed by a picnic for all participants. Please contact Dana Huck by
email at dana_1@execpc.com or by phone at (262) 639-0465 to sign up. We
hope to have a good turn out for this event, so please plan to
participate.


From the Chair…
By Dana Huck

Earth Day will be observed on Monday, April 22. Former Wisconsin Senator
Gaylord Nelson is credited with founding Earth Day, which was first
observed in 1970. Earth Day began as a result of a grassroots movement
to bring the issue of environmental protection to the attention of
politicians who had largely accepted increasing pollution of air and
water as a cost of economic progress. Looking back, it is obvious that
great strides have been made, and environmental protection has become a
significant issue politically.

At present, however, gathering support for legislation and regulations
protecting the environment is a challenging task. Big Business has
proclaimed that protecting the environment will harm the economy, and
has spent millions, if not billions, on political contributions and
lobbying. As a result each environmental victory has been a hard fought
battle, and there have been some defeats. In the past year, the
environment has come under attack on many fronts—our air, water, forests
and wilderness areas are in danger of being compromised, unless a
grassroots movement reminds policymakers that we need to strengthen,
not roll back, the protections given to these resources.

The Sierra Club is a grassroots organization that works to make every
day Earth Day. Through the national organization, the state chapters and
the local groups, it provides opportunities for involvement at all levels
of interest and ability. At the local level, we need the involvement of
all of our members. You can help us by attending meetings, suggesting
projects or speakers on topics that are of particular interest to you
and by communicating your support for the environment to your elected
representatives.

This Earth Day there will be many opportunities to participate in group
activities that demonstrate your concern for our planet. Our group will
be cleaning up “our” section of Highway 38 on April 20th and would be
happy to have you choose that activity as your expression of support for
the environment. If you are unable to join us on the 20th, I hope you
will find some other way to commemorate Earth Day.



From Your Legislative Watchdog
By Jean McGraw

If ever there were a time when an environmentalist needs to be active in
politics, now is the time. Our most precious, irreplaceable resources
are under attack.
Let’s start locally. How the EPA can allow three coal-burning power
plants to be constructed in our area is beyond me. Our air is so
polluted that Southeast Wisconsin ranks among the ten worst areas in the
U.S. Despite the protests of the advocates of coal, little progress has
been made to reduce the pollution it causes. Coal is the major source of
the mercury polluting our lakes and rivers and making the fish dangerous
to eat. Natural gas is much better but costs more—or does it? Let’s
factor in the costs of health problems and cleaning up pollution that
goes with coal. We should insist on natural gas for these power plants

No one even mentions conservation. How about a graduated system of
pricing so that big users pay more? Or how about closing stores on
Sunday? (Yes, I like to shop on Sunday too.) People will find a way to
buy the groceries and other needs on weekdays. I don’t think sales would
suffer much.

Statewise, the Senate has passed Bill l60 (banning the use of cyanide in
mining) and Bill SB27l (to close a loophole that would permit more
groundwater pollution in mines) but the Assembly has not acted. Write,
telephone, interview your assemblyperson to urge immediate passage of
these bills before our peerless Wolf River watershed is damaged forever.
No mine using cyanide has ever operated without environmental damage and
an accidental spill could be disastrous. The new owner of the Crandon
minesite, BHP Billiton, was responsible for 3l spills of cyanide at
three mines in Nevada and Arizona.

Nationally, it has not always been the case; but the current Republicans
are putting reduced taxes and business profits ahead of environmental
concerns. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is to be sacrificed for a
few months’ supply of oil. (Increased CAFE standards would save far more
oil.) Certain groups are working to weaken the Endangered Species Act,
which has been a phenomenal success up to now. President Clinton’s
forest initiative, which would permanently protect the few remaining
wilderness areas in our national forests, is not being enforced because
it is being contested in court by snowmobile, skiing and lumber
interests.
There are some excellent environmentalists among the Republicans, but
the majority definitely are willing to sacrifice the environment for the
benefit of business (spell that big donors). We need to return the
Democratic majority in the Senate and regain the majority in the House.

The number one target of the Republicans right now is Senator Paul
Wellstone of Minnesota, who always votes right on environmental issues.
The Republicans are pouring millions of dollars into the effort to
defeat him and regain the Senate majority.

Please vote in every election, keep informed, get active in your Party;
and, if you can, help Wellstone with a donation. I am only writing about
environmental issues, but right now it’s the Democrats who are more
likely to defend them. Hate to be partisan but…


Southeast Gateway Group Committee Assignments…

At the annual planning meeting in January, the following committee
assignments were confirmed:

Agriculture: Nancy Hennessy; Air Quality: Vera Boone; Alternate
Chapter Delegate: Dian Sorenson; Aquatic Issues: Barry Thomas, Melissa
Warner; Awards: Barry Thomas

Biodiversity and Endangered Species: Roz McHugh; Conservation: John
Berge; Energy: Lila Berge; Environmental Education: Donna Peterson,
Roz McHugh;

Forest Issues: Jean McGraw; Fund Raising: Nita Larson, Vera Boone,
Donna Peterson and Dian Sorenson; Great Lakes: Frank Egerton;
Greeters: Bob and Betty Gericke; Hospitality: Dian Sorenson;

Legislative Issues: Vera Boone and Dian Sorenson; Membership: Nita
Larson and Donna Peterson; Newsletter: Gary Zumach, editor; Outings:
MaryAnn Ortmeyer;

Phone Tree: Donna Peterson and Roz McHugh; Political Issues: Jean
McGraw and Vera Boone; Population: Nita Larson; Program: Roz McHugh;
Publicity: Narees Breach;

Transportation: Jay Warner; Treasurer: Rich Rodenbeck; Website: Eric
Howe


A Correction and an Update…
By John Berge

We have been asked to correct one sentence, concerning the Mary Ellen
Johnson memorial site along the Root River in Racine, in the Group
history article that appeared in the previous issue.

The Kenosha-Racine Land Trust purchased the four acres with funds they
raised locally which were matched on a 2 for 1 basis by a donation from
Mary Ellen’s son, Preston Johnson.

The Four acres were donated to the City of Racine which has cut down the
weedy trees and undergrowth and removed the fence line cutting through
the property. Contaminated foundry sand dumped on the property over
decades and all traces of the old tennis court will be removed.

The memorial stone will eventually be relocated on the site. Vegetation
appropriate to the wetland site will be returned and the Root River
Trail will pass by the new preserve.