News of the Week announced. The House 1990 autho- ted to making the technology ecorization and appropriations bills for nomically available to major librarDOE provide $1.6 billion for waste ies, universities, and colleges. management and environmental resThe threat of disintegration of toration. The Senate authorization acidic paper has become a big probbill provides $1.8 billion. However, lem for libraries. For example, 97% there won't be any detailed scruti- of the Library of Congress's law and ny of the five-year plan until after general book collection is printed the August recess. on acidic paper. In 1984 the library Janice Long estimated that 25%, or 3 million volumes, of that collection had become too brittle for circulation. Efforts to combat future deterioration are also being made at the Akzo granted license publishing end of the book manufacturing system. In March, a group for book preservation of authors and members of the pubThe U.S. government has granted lishing community gathered for a Akzo Chemicals, Chicago, an exclu- ''Commitment Day" at the New sive license to implement a bulk York Public Library (C&EN, March process that stops deterioration of 13, page 5). Terming the problem a books and documents printed on cause whose time had come, they acidic paper. The process was de- called for the use of acid-free paper veloped by Akzo Chemicals in af- for all first printings of quality hardfiliation with the Library of Con- cover books. gress. It uses diethyl zinc (DEZ) vaJim Krieger pors that permeate the pages of closed books. For the past 18 months, a pilot Union helps stall plant capable of handling 40,000 books per year has been operated BASF plant startup in Deer Park, Tex., at Texas Alkyls, a joint venture of Akzo and Hercu- A new page was written last week les. Akzo and Hercules will start in the battle in Geismar, La., beconstruction of a full-scale commer- tween BASF Corp. and the Oil, cial plant within 42 months, accord- Chemical & Atomic Workers Union ing to Akzo project director Rich- (OCAW). The union helped conard F. Miller. They intend to build vince Louisiana's department of entwo plants in the U.S. and Europe, vironmental quality to delay startup each capable of treating 1 million of BASF's new glyoxal facility for books annually. No sites have been fear of groundwater contamination. chosen yet. The Geismar area hasn't known The process takes place in a low- peace for almost a decade because pressure chamber, from which all of a long strike against the plant air and most moisture have been and subsequent lockout of more evacuated. DEZ flowing into the than 300 workers. In its efforts to chamber neutralizes any acid present, pressure the plant to hire back all forming zinc sulfate. It also reacts the locked out employees—most of with water present in the paper to whom have, in fact, been rehired— form zinc oxide, which serves as a the union joined with environmenbuffer to neutralize acids that may tal groups in protests against BASF's form later. The treatment cycle takes environmental record. The effect from 55 to 60 hours. The lowest was a rare merger of worker and pressure achieved during the cycle environmental causes. is 0.1 torr—an unusually high vacThe activism has coincided with uum compared with normal chemical Louisiana's strict new environmenindustry practice, Miller points out. tal policies. These stemmed from The pilot plant—with a chamber years of negative publicity about 6 feet in diameter and 6 feet long— air, water, and ground contaminahas demonstrated that books can be tion in a heavily industrialized state. treated for $6.00 to $10 each. As Last year, the governor was forced part of the license, Akzo is commit- to declare a state of emergency 6
August 7, 1989 C&EN
around suspicions of miscarriages caused by toxic chemicals. BASF had worked hard for state approval for startup. But in a letter last September to the state environment agency, the union said BASF failed to report all potential contamination beneath its new plant. The plant was built atop a site that BASF had once used to make the herbicide, Bentazon. BASF tested the soil only for ethylene dichloride and monochlorobenzene for its report to the state. The state now wants it tested for seven other chemicals used in Bentazon manufacture and is giving the company 90 days to report the results. BASF argued that excavating the land (which would necessitate a $10 million relocation of the glyoxal plant) was unnecessary because the wastes posed no threat to local drinking water. It argued, too, that other chemical companies with similar problems were allowed to use pumping and treatment techniques. Its plant manager, William Moran, says he will carry out the order but doesn't expect to find any problems. He says BASF had been planning to pump and treat the ground all along in efforts to leach any contaminants from the soil. However, the state is moving toward excavation as the only guarantee of groundwater protection. "We're not going to make them dig all the way to China," says the state's water quality director, Maureen O'Neill. "But operating the plant would preclude appropriate cleanup of any kind." Moran wants to keep separate any relationship between the glyoxal/ groundwater issue and union activity over the still unresolved lockout. "OCAW had nothing to do with the [state agency's] looking into the groundwater condition," he says. But Richard Miller, OCAW's local representative says they are linked. "I think the rank and file here has been sensitized—even radicalized—with respect to environmental issues," he says. "The local has raised a significant amount of money for environmental foundations to carry on the work begun during the lockout just so that we can have a sound labor /environmental coalition." Wil Lepkowski
