[CPEO-BIF] Residents' group seeks to keep local toxics out of Indians' air

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California
MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE
Residents' group seeks to keep local toxics out of Indians' air
Committee wants to make sure Mountain View cleanups don't endanger
others
By Julie O'Shea
Friday, July 25, 2003

Mountain View's new toxics advisory council is aiming to prevent local
groundwater pollution from becoming someone else's problem.

The Filter Committee -- named for the carbon vessels that remove toxins
from city ground water -- was officially formed last week by members of
the Northeast Mountain View Advisory Council, a community group
overseeing the city's federal waste cleanups.

Council members said they decided to act after reading a May 16 Voice
report that toxin-laden filters from Mountain View were incinerated at a
plant on an Arizona Indian reservation; the process of heating the
filters releases dioxin -- one of the most carcinogenic substances known
to man -- into the reservation's air.

The committee, said Bruce England, one of the four residents behind its
formation, is still in its infancy. While the focus is on Mountain View
at this point, England said he hopes to explore what is happening in
other communities that are facing toxic cleanups.

"It's not going to be easy, we can already tell," he said. "It's going
to be a multiple-pronged thing," he said of the committee. Right now,
"we want to get ourselves educated."

Committee members have already met with officials of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to get more information about
facilities around the country that destroy toxic chemicals.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.mv-voice.com/thisweek/2003_07_25.usflter.html

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