Conjtinuing Politics in Hawaii------------
Wonder if they heard of the ozon alternative yet.
The battle over the Big Island's proposed food irradiator has often been couched in terms of
economics vs. safety. But it could also be a debate of economics vs. economics.
The faces were often familiar. On one side, Mayor Yamashiro, Councilman Aaron Chung, and
representatives from such organizations as the Chamber of Commerce, the Hawai'i Farm Bureau
and the Contractor's Association (represented by Yamashiro's campaign chair, Hugh Willock).
On the other side, a group of environmentalists and angry citizens, including such well-known
activists as Rene Siracusa and Jim Albertini. But the emotional stakes were even higher than
usual. Demonstrators from both sides marched on one County Council hearing for Bill No. 62 last
month, and had angry confrontations outside the Council doors. At least one protester had the
paint on her car "keyed"; and one councilperson's staffer, who had parked in her boss's space,
had the air let out of two tires. Mayor Yamashiro called opponents "economic terrorists." Some
opponents responded by heckling pro-irradiation speakers in the Council Chamber. Opponents
accused the Council Finance Committee, in an earlier hearing, of allowing proponents to "sign up"
to speak ahead of time, of allowing a private company to make a long pro-62 presentation out of
order, and of other instances of favoritism toward proponents.
Among many reasons for the high tension was the subject itself: nuclear radiation of food. While
Bill No. 62's wording was extremely vague, everyone knew what it was about: the Mayor wanted
$2 million to promote and/or build an irradiation facility to kill fruit flies on fruit for export. Most
pro-irradiation speakers insisted that the plant was needed to boost Big Island agriculture.
Anti-irradiation speakers emphasized the degradation of food quality, the danger of a radiation
accident, and the unknown risks of non-radioactive "radiolytes," substances created when
gamma radiation strikes food.
The reality of food irradiation is not nearly so clear-cut. Both sides can cite scientific bases for
their views of the safety or danger of irradiation technology. But the economic issue is an even less
clear. Is there actually a market for irradiated fruit, and could public reaction to it damage the
market for other Hawaiian products? Is irradiation the best technology available to solve the
problem? Are irradiated export crops the best possible use for the land? Are there enough crops to
keep the irradiator solvent? Will the cost of reasonable preparedness for a radiation disaster
exceed the plant's economic benefit? The wrong answer to any one of these questions would turn
an irradiation facility from an economic boon into a boondoggle.
The "Yecch" Factor
Irradiators are not nuclear reactors, but they do utilize similar technology, and depend upon
reactors for radioisotope "fuel." Rods containing radioactive cobalt-60 or cesium-137 are raised
out of a pool of water, just as uranium- or plutonium-containing rods are raised and lowered to
control reactions in a nuclear power plant. But cobalt-60 causes no chain reaction. Instead, the
containment chamber--and anything inside, such as fruit--is bombarded with gamma rays,
about 2 million times more powerful than hospital X-rays. Open an irradiated fruit, and you may
still find fly maggots--but they'll be very dead maggots.
Among other materials, Council members received a World Health Organization report which
contends that irradiated food is safe, and that "the source of radiation energy used in irradiators
cannot produce neutrons, substances which make materials radioactive, so no nuclear 'chain
reaction' can occur at an irradiator. The walls of the irradiation cell through which the machine
passes, the machinery inside the cell, and the product being processed cannot become
radioactive." But the same cannot be said of the reactors that produce the irradiator's cobalt-60.
The nuclear industry has become linked in the public mind with the disasters at Three Mile Island
and Chernobyl, and with the gigantic, costly cleanups at sites such as Hanford and the Savannah
River plant. "This [food irradiation] supports, legitimizes and depends upon the entire nuclear fuel
cycle," says irradiation opponent Kathy Dorn. "The environmental health hazards of the nuclear
fuel cycle are so horrific that there is no need for exaggeration."
Whether irradiated fruit is safe or not, the very idea of it can be daunting for some. Nuclear
radiation is, after all, the 20th Century's Bogeyman, a thing Baby Boomers have been taught to
fear since grade school. This emotional repulsion--call it the "yecch" response--is a real factor
to consider in marketing irradiated food.
Proponents cite several studies, including test sales of fruit from Hawai'i, showing that the
consumers will accept irradiated fruit, especially if "given the facts." But the studies don't predict
the outcome if anti-irradiation groups launch a "counter-education" effort. A Vermont-based
group, Food & Water, has already flooded the Mayor's office with letters, threatening to boycott
all Hawaiian products if the state markets irradiated fruit.
An excellent primer on irradiation issues is a report written for Councilman John Ray by Lois-ellin
Datta, a retired director of program evaluation for the U.S. General Accounting office. Datta
points out several faults in the original FDA methodology in approving food irradiation. While
irradiation proponents "can wrap themselves in the mantle of the FDA, WHO and other
organizations," Datta writes, opponents "who want to emphasize the uncertainties and risks of
irradiated foods have no shortage of studies which can be cited as cause for alarm." She reports
that "an international coalition of over 70 organizations from around the world is calling for a
moratorium on food irradiation until the safety and nutrition value can be more clearly assured."
In a best case scenario, consumers would snap up exotic Hawaiian fruits. "But as the Unhappy
Face warnings run," Datta writes, "IF some consumer groups in Japan and the United States
mount effective anti-radiation campaigns, advertising costs could become a bottomless pit, with
wide-spread negative effects in eroding confidence in the purity of non-irradiated fruits, in chilling
the expanding organic market, and in leading to long-term subsidies from the County and a
nega-dollar result."
The Mexican Mango Factor
A few years ago, Florida growers planted acres of mango trees. Today, those trees are being
bulldozed. The Floridians discovered they simply couldn't compete with the cheap mangoes that
began flooding in from Mexico.
A similar specter haunts almost any attempt to develop tropical fruit exports from Hawaii. Lychee
and rambutan, for instance, are two fruits frequently mentioned as possible beneficiaries of a Big
Island irradiation plant. Lychee in Northern Thailand sells for about ten baht (50 cents) per kilo.
Southeast Asia also produces huge quantities of rambutan.
In a list of questions submitted to two Council members in April, Eileen Ohara-Weir of the
Hawai'i Organic Farmers' Association ponders the wisdom of continually pioneering niches that
others can easily invade. "What prevents irradiation from being used by other tropical fruit
producing countries?" she asks. "Virtually all areas where there is tropical fruit production have
cheaper costs of production (land and labor) than Hawai'i, and many have subsidized
transportation...there is no significant variation in seasons between Florida, Hawai'i and Asian
exotic tropical fruit production...." Local growers might counter this advantage through other
advanced agricultural tricks, such as artificially manipulating the ripening seasons of various fruits,
then shipping when competitors' fruits are unavailable . By exploiting such "windows of
opportunity," Hawai'i growers might establish a toehold that they could later expand. But again,
such techniques could probably be imitated by growers elsewhere. "Let's not just treat the crop,
dump it on the market and then hope it sells," suggests one USDA employee.
The Better Mouse Trap Factor
According to Councilman Dominic Yagong, there was little discussion of alternative quarantine
treatments before the Council's first vote on the irradiation bill. But alternatives do exist, using
readily available technology. The Big Island's USDA Agricultural Research Service Tropical Fruit
and Vegetable Laboratory boasts the following among its list of "Recent Accomplishments" on its
Internet website:
Development of the forced hot-air quarantine treatment technology for papaya and other
fresh fruits against Mediterranean fruit Fly, melon fly and oriental fruit fly....
Development of a hot water immersion quarantine treatment for litchi (sic) against
Mediterranean fruit fly, melon fly, and oriental fruit fly. Development of quarantine cold
treatments for avocado and carambola against Mediterranean fruit fly, melon fly and
oriental fruit fly....
Development of a heat shock treatment for cold tolerance of Hawaiian 'Sharwil' avocados
that permits the avocados to undergo a quarantine cold treatment without chill injury
symptoms...
The treatment for Sharwil avocados is significant, because the Sharwil fits one of those seasonal
windows of opportunity--and irradiation can leave avocados blackened in the center. "Heat
shock" simply requires 100-degree temperatures for eight to twelve hours. The fruit is then
chilled for several days. One operating model uses an off-the-shelf heating element and fan for
the "heat shock" unit, and an unmodified Matson refrigerated container for the cold treatment.
Any fruit farmer could easily build such a unit, or the fruit could go through the "chilled" stage
while on ship.
Refrigerants have contributed to atmospheric ozone depletion, though more ozone-friendly
refrigeration units are already being phased in. And on an energy-strapped island, the power bill
for a heat-shock and cold-treatment could get rather steep. On the other hand, construction costs
would be a tiny fraction of an irradiation plant's, and the problem of shipping and handling deadly
radioisotopes would disappear.
Because of the these new technologies, Isomedix, the likely builder of the irradiation plant, may be
facing its own "window of opportunity." If these other new methods of treatment prove cheaper
and become accepted, irradiation might not have enough business to survive. But if the irradiation
arrives first and becomes the standard quarantine treatment, then builders could use the heavy
investment in the facility as an excuse to crowd out new technologies before they can take hold.
The "Feed Me" Factor
"Some studies of the economics of food irradiation plants have pointed out the need for them to run
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to be profitable-and questioned whether most
fruit-producing areas in fruit-fly zones would have a year-round harvest cycle of different fruits
needed," writes Datta. "These studies assert that multipurpose applications, such as combining
medical irradiation and fruit processing, would be needed." The only consistently profitable food
irradiator this writer has discovered so far is in Indonesia, one of the most populous nations on
earth, and irradiates everything from shrimp to talcum powder. Once such a plant is established
here, could the need to keep it "fed" create a pressure to ask not just how best to serve
agriculture, but how best to preserve irradiation?
Colonial Bottom-Dweller Factor
Exporting nearly-raw, irradiated fruit to the Mainland would perpetuate a colonial economy, in
which crude product is sent elsewhere while more expensive, finished goods are imported. In
Hawai'i, this bottom-of-the-food-chain economy has been carried to extremes: so much
farmland has been devoted to export crops such as sugar, that the Big Island still has to import
much of its food. Proponents argue that the local market for exotic tropical fruits will soon be
saturated. But would the Big Island's economy benefit more from exporting more fruits, or from
replacing some of its own imported fruits and vegetables with domestic produce, freeing capital
spent on those imports? Could we develop more value-added products, such as juices and jams,
that could be sold to tourists here, keeping jobs and profits from leaving town, processing and
retailing here at home? Could we develop other crops, such as tea and cocoa, that could readily be
processed and sold here, a la Kona Coffee?
The Disaster Factor
County Civil Defense Director Harry Kim. takes no position for or against the irradiator, but states
flatly that cobalt-60 is a "dangerous element": "Anybody who minimizes that risk is doing a grave
injustice to the public." He also points out, however, that it's a "known risk": procedures for
dealing with it are already prescribed by Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules.
Kim thinks the six-foot-thick containment walls of an NRC-regulated plant could easily
withstand a hurricane. But a tsunami, with its 20-ton boulders, or a major earthquake might be
another matter. NRC regulations call for a containment structure that can withstand the worst
earthquake expected to happen in 250 years--in the Big Island's case, a 7.8 or 7.9. But a quake
might not need to crack the containment walls to create a disaster. Veteran nuclear opponent
Lanny Sinkin points out that one common mishap in irradiation plants is for the rods to get stuck in
the "up" position--and that the NRC would probably look at the "synergistic effect" of an
earthquake when the rods were already in the "up" position. In other words, an earthquake could
bend something and cause the rods to get stuck in the sterilizing position..
The cost of developing a monitoring system, notification plan and evacuation plan for an irradiation
disaster are currently unknown. Liability for cleanup would fall first on the NRC license-holder for
the plant. But if the county invests funds in the plant or if public lands are used, the county could be
held partially liable.
But the big cost of the plant could be prevention. Cost estimates for the plant itself, given by
pro-irradiation sources, range from one million to 1.8 million. But this is without any special
protections that might be needed against Big Island quakes. And legal and insurance bills involved
in meeting strict NRC standards could amount to much more.
Sinkin served as an attorney in two contested cases over nuclear power plants in Texas. "If the
license is contested, it could be a very lengthy process," he says. The NRC is not required to hold
public hearings on irradiators, but may if the public expresses concerns. Given the controversy
here, Sinkin believes, "I can guarantee the NRC will go to some form of public process."
If the NRC opts for a contested case hearing, it will appoint its own panel of experts, and both
applicant and intervenors present witnesses. All the parties get to cross-examine. One of Sinkin's
cases dragged on for ten years, and the transcript ran to 12,000 pages.
Some proponents of the irradiation plant will profit from its building, whether it helps local farmers
or not. Nurserymen will sell young trees whose fruit may or may not be profitable; bureaucrats
will get to control research funds, contractors will get contracts, and lobbyists and promoters will
collect their fees. But the facility they create won't automatically benefit the agricultural
community; it must first find a market, operate safely and competitively, and plow profits back into
the local economy. Before Big Island residents can equate support for an irradiation plant with
fostering local agriculture, they will need to look carefully at the six issues raised above, and
probably at many others. |
