those programs and business opportunities. In his first year, Hennessy has added a money-making company, sold off many money-losing businesses, reorganized Allied, and trimmed its staff. The money-maker was Eltra Corp., a $1.1 billion per year producer of electrical, industrial, and consumer products. Though part of the $590 million purchase price came from short-term debt, Allied later paid off all its U.S. short-term debt with $216 million raised from selling 4 million shares of stock. Next, Hennessy moved to settle dragging litigation with Armco over supplies from Allied coke batteries. Allied paid Armco $20 million and
gave Armco its Montgomery, W.Va., coal mine. Allied later sold off a Detroit coke plant, a McDowell County, West Virginia, coal mine, and a Louisiana gas pipeline company. Sale of Allied's last coke plant in Ashland, Ky., has been delayed because of the buyer's difficulty with financing, but Hennessy expects to sell it this year. Hennessy is even hopeful Allied can recover its $100 million investment in a Barnwell, S.C., nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. President Carter has decided not to let private industry participate in such business. A $500,000 "outplacement" effort helped all but 21 of the 700 Allied employees terminated in September find new jobs, Hennessy says. •
EPA bars manufacture of six new chemicals The Environmental Protection I Agency has barred a company from manufacturing six new chemical substances, claiming they may pose serious risks to human health and the environment. This is the first time the agency has used its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act to ban manufacture of a new compound that may be hazardous. Because this law protects confidential data from companies about products they intend to manufacture, information about the banned substances is incomplete. EPA has identified the names of the compounds being banned, for instance, but it will not say what company wants to manufacture them. Expected production figures are considered confidential, but not the number of workers who would be exposed to the compounds if manufacture were allowed. The compounds are phthalate esters and were to be used as plasticizers for making polyvinyl chloride. EPA estimates that 300 to 400 workers could be exposed to these compounds during their production and another 1000 to 10,000 during their use in making finished plastic goods. Barring the manufacture probably will not mean any loss of jobs, EPA says. EPA is blocking manufacture of the compounds because the manufacturer did not provide the agency with any information about the environmental fate or the environmental and human health effects of the compounds, and there is evidence that similar phthalate esters are hazardous, says deputy EPA administrator Barbara Blum. She says a study recently completed by the National Cancer Institute found that mice and rats fed a related plasticizer, di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, devel- I
oped liver tumors. In addition, other dialkyl phthalates have been shown to kill or cause skeletal deformities in rainbow trout and other fish. They also can reduce reproduction of lower aquatic organisms, thus disturbingaquatic food chains. Unless the company wishing to manufacture the esters can satisfy EPA that its concerns are unfounded, the plasticizers will stay off the market. The company, however, has 30 days to object to EPA's decision—an action that would force EPA to court to obtain an injunction stopping manufacture. An unusual aspect of this ban is that other phthalate esters are already in use as plasticizers. There is no information that the new compounds are any worse than the phthalate ester plasticizers already in use, according to EPA assistant administrator Steven D. Jellinek. "Congress clearly didn't tie our hands just because similar chemicals are
Jellinek: similar chemicals on market
already being marketed," he says. Jellinek says EPA is also concerned with the possible hazards of the phthalate esters in use and eventually may call for further testing of these compounds as well. •
New York sues Hooker over Love Canal The state of New York has joined the legal fray over the dumped chemical wastes at Love Canal near Niagara Falls, N.Y. Last week, state attorney general Robert Abrams filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in Niagara County asking for $635 million in damages against Hooker Chemicals & Plastics, Hooker Chemicals, and their parent company, Occidental Petroleum. Of this, $270 million is in punitive damages. The complaint charges that between 1942 and 1953 Hooker, then called Hooker Electrochemical, dumped 21,000 tons of chemical waste at Love Canal. These wastes, according to the complaint, included hazardous materials "which cause or are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, mutations or changes in the characteristic of genes, and/or other acute and chronic adverse reactions in human beings, including, but not limited to, reproductive injury and damage to the liver, kidneys, skin, blood, lungs and nervous system, and which damage, or are suspected of damaging, plant and animal life." The complaint also charges that as early as the 1950's Hooker received reports that persons had been injured by exposure to chemical wastes at the surface of Love Canal. And the complaint says, "From the time it first dumped its chemical wastes at Love Canal and continuing thereafter, Hooker failed to warn or inform the general public or those persons who have lived, worked, played near, or who otherwise have had occasion to be near Love Canal and the surrounding neighborhood, of the hazardous nature of the chemicals disposed of at Love Canal, of the danger of migration of those chemicals out of Love Canal, or of the danger to people and the environment of exposure to such chemicals." In reply to the complaint Occidental says, "Hooker and Occidental feel that this and other sensational political harassments, although creating publicity for public officials, serve no social purpose." Occidental says that at the time the site was used, it was considered ideal since the chemicals were placed in impermeable clay. May 5, 1980C&EN
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