Richard Whitney, a law student at SIUC, said the issue unites people from different areas affected by it.

We’re all basically in the same fight the fight against incineration, he said. It’s a primitive way to dispose of toxic waste.

The incinerator at Crab Orchard is being installed to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from four areas in the refuge which were contaminated from industrial dumping by Sangamo Electronics. Sangamo was one of several companies that occupied buildings built by the government in World War II to manufacture munitions.

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Schlumberger Industries, a Texas environmental firm, purchased Sangamo in 1976 and inherited the contaminated site. After studies in the mid-1980s revealed the extent of contamination the area eventually became eligible for clean-up under the EPA Superfund enacted in 1980.

Critics of the incinerator said the process will release harmful amounts of dioxin into the area near the incinerator.

Rowell said although a contract has been signed and plans for the incinerator are fully in place, she is still hopeful the deal may be blocked.

You can stop anything if you really want to, she said.

Richard Davis, Schlumberger’s project manager for the Crab Orchard site, said test runs of the incinerator are planned to begin next spring. He said the burning of the contaminated dirt will immediately follow a successful test run.

Rowell said EPA studies released since the consent decree giving the go-ahead for incineration indicate the health risks posed by dioxin may be worse than what was previously believed. She said the study tied respiratory problems, liver damage and birth defects to dioxin. She added that other recent EPA studies said people already have a near dangerous level of dioxon in their bodies and should not be exposed to the substance.

Rowell said drawing attention to these studies is one of the major reasons for the protest at Times Beach.

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The EPA has said from the beginning of the project that levels of dioxin released by incineration are not harmful to humans and are even less than what are found to be released by some wood-burning stoves used for heating people’s homes.

There will be some dioxin released from the incinerator, but it will be in concentrations within the limits the EPA has deemed to be acceptable through their studies, Davis said. He said the incinerator will be monitored constantly and will be shut down if levels exceed the EPA limits.

Rowell said the protest is only a step in the fight against the incinerator, which she believes is far from over.

There’s going to be a big public outcry before this is over, she said. They misinform the public and don’t tell the whole truth. People need to know dioxin can cause them to have an illness they otherwise wouldn’t have.