Interfaith
says peace

As
First Rogue George W. Bush tries to conjure an excuse for “pre-emptive” war on
Iraq, hundreds of national organizations, community and student groups, unions,
etc., are signing up for the peace movement.

            One new signer is the Interfaith Alliance of Rochester.

            Calling itself “a growing and
diverse interfaith community supporting our nation’s democratic process,” the
alliance recently adopted a resolution “opposing military action by the United
States against Iraq unless unequivocally authorized by the United Nations
Security Council.” The statement doesn’t go into further detail.

            Spokesperson Neil Jaschik says the
resolution came after reconciling some shades of opinion. Some board members,
he says, are “absolutists — no war, period,” while others “say the case has
not been made.”

            “We perceive our major purpose in
life as educational,” says Jaschik.

            Learn more about the group via its
national coalition website, www.interfaithalliance.org.

Decades
of emissions

The
New York Public Interest Research Group (often known simply as NYPIRG) and the statewide Citizens Environmental Coalition recently took the long view on
pollution.

            The groups actually ran with a study
done by three researchers from the US PIRG Education Fund, the Washington-based
research arm of the PIRG network. The study, Toxic Releases and Health: a Review of Pollution Data and Current
Knowledge on the Health Effects of Toxic Chemicals, looks at 1987-2000 data
from the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory
(TRI).

            The timeframe, the researchers say,
provides more than a snapshot — and thus tells a more comprehensive story of
regulated industrial emissions and their possible “links to serious health
problems.”

            The study does pinpoint some things,
however. Most notably, it says that Kodak Park “ranked nine among the top 100
facilities nationwide for TRI releases of dioxin and other carcinogenic
chemicals in 2000.” Of particular concern, according to the researchers: more
than 58 million pounds of dichloromethane (usually called methylene chloride)
released by Kodak during the years studied. The EPA says methylene chloride at
high levels of “lifetime exposure” has a “potential” to cause liver damage and
cancer.

            NYPIRG and the Citizens
Environmental Coalition worry that Kodak’s emissions may play some role in
“such health ailments as developmental and reproductive disorders.” The groups
say Rochesterians are “still waiting for a more accurate study [of these concerns]
from the state Department of Health.”

            A Kodak spokesperson couldn’t be
reached before presstime. But the company has long said Kodak Park shows up
high on lists of polluters only because of its massive size. Moreover, in its
2001 environmental report, the company boasted of having reduced methylene
chloride by 86 percent since 1987, among other clean-up measures.

This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2003.