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16 EPA J. 50 (1990)
Eastern Europe: Restoring a Damaged Environment

handle is hein.journals/epajrnl16 and id is 228 raw text is: Eastern Europe: Restoring a Damaged Environment by Richard A. Liroff Whole sectors of industry are producing things in which no one is interested, while things we need are in short supply .... Our outdated economy is squandering energy .... We have laid waste to our soil and the rivers and the forests our forefathers bequeathed us, and we have the worst environment in all of Europe today. -Vaclev Havel, President of Czechoslovakia (Liroff directs the Eastern Europe Environment Program at World Wildlife Fund and The Conservation Foundation. Previously affiliated, these groups were formally merged in 1990 to form a private, non-profit conservation organization involved in research and environmental protection.) P resident Havel's assessment of his nation's economic and environmental ills applies broadly across Eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain has been lifted to reveal truly appalling environmental conditions. Eastern Europe has been savaged by economic-development policies indifferent to the carrying capacity of its ecosystems and to the health and well-being of its citizens. The East's central planners have demonstrated they can be as environmentally callous and cavalier as the worst private-sector managers in market-oriented economies. The United States, together with Western Europe, is supporting the economic and political transition of Eastern Europe. The United States should offer a balanced, integrated program of environmental and economic assistance that fosters full restoration of a healthy environment in Eastern Europe. Such a program would help reduce the region's contribution to global warming and encourage use of both American technologies and innovative approaches to pollution prevention. The Enviromnental Challenge The German Democratic Republic (GDR), Czechoslovakia, and Poland are among the world's largest emitters of sulfur dioxide (S02). Moreover, in Europe, as elsewhere in the world, air pollution does not respect political boundaries. The Eastern European states export from 59 percent to 74 percent of their SO2 emissions. According to monitoring data, however, of the total amount of SO2 deposited in these nations, 36 to 59 percent originates outside their borders. The forests of western Czechoslovakia, southwestern Poland, and the southern GDR have been devastated. Budapest, Prague, Krakow, and other major cities routinely have air-pollution readings well above existing health standards. Drinking-water supplies throughout Eastern Europe are heavily contaminated. Vast reaches of the Vistula River in Poland, which drains much of the country, are classified as unfit for use even by industry. The Baltic and Black Sea coasts are badly degraded by domestic sewage, agricultural run-off, and heavy metals and organic pollutants from industry. Water quality problems are both domestic and transboundary; domestic progress in combating pollution has been slow, and multilateral cooperation negligible. The soil, too, is polluted. Industrial discharges have contaminated soils and domestic food supplies. In the Upper Silesia region of Poland, for example, lead, zinc, cadmium, and mercury levels in samples of garden produce are 30 to 70 percent higher than World Health Organization norms. Eastern Europe's mines and industries yield prodigious amounts of solid and hazardous waste. Waste generators in Hungary reportedly dispose of over 500,000 tons of hazardous waste annually in illegal landfills. In addition, substantial amounts of hazardous waste have been shipped east from Western nations. The GDR has reported importing one million tons of waste annually, but Greenpeace contends that the amount of imports has been disguised and is really five times greater. Few safeguards have been developed to assure appropriate management of these wastes. The devastation of the environment is revealed through effects on human health and welfare. In especially contaminated areas, statistics and anecdotal evidence show dramatically elevated rates of respiratory disease, EPA JOURNAL

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