Partisans Take Sides in Referendum Fight

Members of the Committee to Make Polluters Pay gathered in Cambridge last week to support a ballot initiative which would tax companies that produce toxic waste.

If passed, Question 4--known as the Polluter Pay Initiative--would place a tax of one fifth of a cent per pound on the production and import of toxic chemicals and industrial petroleum products in Massachusetts.

Supporters say the legislation will provide the funding to cleanup Massachusetts' 2,700 toxic waste sites. But opponents say the referendum is badly drafted and provides no guarantee that the tax money raised will be used for environmental clean-up. The measure, they say, will simply increase prices for consumers.

Supporters of the initiative are touring 50 towns and toxic dump sites before election day to lobby for support of Question 4. Fresh Pond was stop 21 on the group's "Toxic Tour."

Lois M. Gibbs, who fought for the cleanup of New York's Love Canal in the late 70's, said last week that the referendum was needed to protect residents from the effects of toxic waste.

"I think it's one of the most critical initiatives on the ballot," she said. "I know what it's like to sit there for year after year while your kids are sick and your neighbors are dying."

City Councillors Francis H. Duehay '55 and Alice K. Wolf were also on hand to lend their support for the ballot initiative.

Duehay, the chair of the council's environmental committee, said the drinking water in the Fresh Pond Reservoir is endangered by leaking under-ground oil tanks.

"Protection of the water supply is a vital issue to the people. This is a ticking time bomb," he said.

But the Coalition to Stop the Question 4 Tax, a grass roots organization that acts as a base for other Massachusetts groups, contests that Question 4 is simply a new $35 million excise tax and a "badly drafted and deceptive piece of legislation."

"There is no guarantee that a dime will be spent on environmental cleanup," said the Coalition's Executive Director Dennis M. Dyer.

Dyer said that money raised by the ballot question will not necessarily be spent on environmental cleanup because funds can only be appropriated through legislation, not through a ballot.

Because gasoline, home heating oil, consumer products and companies using under 50,000 pounds of toxic chemicals will not be taxed, taxpayers and small businesses will not be substantially affected, according to the committee.

"Question 4 puts the burden where it belongs--on the companies," said Wilson.

But opponents of the referendum, including the League of Women Voters, the AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation, say that consumers will pay. According to the coalition against Question 4, electric companies will be responsible for paying 60 percent of the tax, a cost may be reflected in consumer's bills.

Massachusetts currently has 2,700 confirmed toxic dump sites and 2,500 more sites are suspected to be contaminated. Only two of these sites have been cleaned up in the past 18 months, according to Matthew L. Wilson, director of the Massachusetts Campaign to clean Up Hazardous Waste.

Although the state is responsible for supervising the clean up of waste sites, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) budget only covers about half of the $45 million per year needed. The Committee to Make Polluters Pay says Question 4 could raise $25 million, enough to cover the DEP's deficit.

"Massachusetts is truly facing a toxic waste crisis," Wilson said.