NO FRIED FOOD IN NEW JERSEY
Terry, Ken
No Fried Food in New Jersey When people get wind of plans to build a food-irradiation plant in their neighborhood, they won't stand for it. At least they didn't in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In...
...The Port Authority, Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn, and the county counsel warned the freeholders not to intervene...
...Martin Welt, then the president of RTI...
...Certainly the RTI plant had the potential of affecting the airport, the waterfront, Newark, Elizabeth, all the surrounding communities...
...The nine-member board was unaware of RTFs plans when it agreed to ban the production, storage, use, and transportation of radioactive materials in the county (except for those used in hospitals and laboratories...
...In June, the company officially shelved the project...
...In May 1986, the Authority told RTI not to proceed until it resolved its conflict with Union County...
...They also provided the freeholders with information about RTFs record of environmental and safety violations at its plant in Rockaway, New Jersey...
...A meeting held in Linden, New Jersey, had turned the tide...
...Ken Terry (Ken Terry is former chair of the Nuclear Free Zone Advisory Committee of Union County and an editor of Variety...
...And in February 1987, Mayor Dunn of Elizabeth reversed himself and demanded that the Port Authority stop the RTI project...
...Like other local activists, though, she was even more worried about the danger of introducing a large quantity of radioactive material into the community...
...In February 1986, after strenuous debate, the freeholders decided to enforce their nuclear-free-zone law against RTI...
...The NRC said RTI had demonstrated "a pattern of wrongdoing so pervasive" that the agency couldn't guarantee the firm would follow NRC rules even with the supervision of outside auditors...
...And I don't care who you are, if you're a citizen who lives around here, you're going to be bothered by it...
...It's wrong," she says...
...Nevertheless, after RTI shuffled its top management and Welt resigned to become a consultant to the Department of Energy, the NRC restored the license...
...To sweeten the deal, the bi-state agency offered to advance the company $3.5 million for construction of the plant...
...The lesson of their struggle, area officials agree, is that local and state authorities should have more power to block commercial projects that threaten public health...
...He came off like a nut, like a mad scientist...
...In September 1985, Radiation Technology, Inc., (RTI) signed a twenty-one-year lease on a portion of a landfill sandwiched between Newark Airport and the Elizabeth seaport, a hub of East Coast shipping...
...The landlord was the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which had taken over the landfill—permeated with PCB-contaminated oil— from Elizabeth with a promise to turn it into an industrial park...
...Alan Augustine, who chairs the Board of Freeholders, doesn't think the plant would have been dropped without public opposition...
...The founder of the company and a tireless, enthusiastic supporter of food irradiation, Welt did not hesitate to depict his critics as communists, dopers, or "cultists...
...By taking an early stand against the plant, he adds, the freeholders gave citizens' groups "the credibility of an elected body supporting their position...
...Three speakers on each side of the issue had their say, including Dr...
...Anti-irradiation activists, meanwhile, organized public forums...
...We were a segment of a total attack that must have had some impact on RTFs turnaround," he says...
...That same month, the city councils of Newark and Elizabeth passed resolutions opposing the plant...
...In August 1986, Federal Judge John W. Bissell of Newark struck down the county's nuclear-free-zone law as an "unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce...
...Financial problems definitely played a role: The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection fined the company $600,000 for polluting the groundwater at its Rockaway site...
...Welt coming into our territory and dictating to us that he was going to bring in nuclear wastes, simply because he had a deal with the Port Authority...
...It could have been a catastrophe for the whole region...
...He also ruled it was preempted by Federal regulations governing the use of radioactive materials...
...RTI responded by suing the county, challenging the constitutionality of the nuclear-free-zone statute...
...Shortly after Union County moved to stop the RTI plant, Welt sustained another rude jolt when safety violations at the company's Rockaway facility led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend RTFs license there...
...Welt was awful," she says...
...A bill to ban the sale of irradiated food was introduced in the New Jersey Legislature in October...
...At the Linden meeting, recalls organizer Georgene Granholm, his arrogance and contempt for the opinions of non-scientists helped turn the crowd against him...
...RTI was fighting a product-liability suit...
...Granholm, mother of three children, was concerned about the health effects of eating irradiated food, which she believes have not been adequately studied...
...And, most important, it never received a cent of the $3.5 million promised by the Port Authority...
...Although the license was soon restored, the episode heartened opponents of the Elizabeth plant and caused the Port Authority to think twice about its support for the project...
...Amid a flurry of publicity, battle lines were quickly drawn...
...People were annoyed by Dr...
...The Port Authority was eager to find a tenant, and RTI was apparently less concerned than other prospects about the contamination...
...About six weeks after the signing of the lease, the Board of Freeholders of Union County, which includes Elizabeth, approved an ordinance declaring the county a nuclear-free zone...
...those who came voiced loud opposition to the RTI facility...
...Then RTFs opponents suffered a blow...
...In an area such as this," says Freeholder Brian Fahey, "I don't think it's adequate to have a policy that this type of industry is regulated by the Feds, and that the NRC can let it go anyplace it wants to go...
...Acombination of factors thwarted RTI...
...Though all seemed to be lost, popular pressure held fast...
...Moreover, the New Jersey Senate's passage of the bill banning the sale of irradiated food—the Assembly is still considering it—dimmed the prospect of quick and easy profits from irradiation...
...I don't care if the PA had the authority or not, the deal was wrong from the start and should never have been considered for that spot, with such a dense population...
...While the suit was pending, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspended the company's Rockaway license, charging it with violating safety rules and lying to the Commission...
...When some residents learned of the proposed plant, they were alarmed and urged the freeholders to block it with their infant ordinance...
...At that point, the Port Authority announced it would let RTI build the irradiation plant...
...Organized by the town's chapter of the League of Women Voters with the help of Union County SANE, a peace group, the forum drew more than a hundred people, including elected officials...
Vol. 51 • September 1987 • No. 9
