Start of interview
DT: My name is David Todd, and it's October 17, year 2000. We're in Dallas and we're at the home of Adlene and Maury Harrison, and we have the good chance to, to be interviewing Adlene Harrison, who has had many roles in public service on behalf of the environment, of having served on the City Council here in Dallas, as Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, being administrator for Region 6, EPA, and for being on the board and chair of DART, the mass transit agency here in Dallas, and many other roles that she's played. I just wanted to thank you for sharing this time with us.
AH: I'm glad you're letting me share the time.
DT: Well, thank you. I thought we might start by talking about your childhood and whether there were times, experiences, people in your early days that might have influenced your interest in the environment and conservation.
AH: Well, that's - that's an easy one, David, because first of all, my father, who loved the outdoors, although he wasn't a hunter or a fisherman, but, he liked to see the natural things, the natural beauty of the outdoors, he would put three kids in the car, my mother, of course, also, and we would go to some national park, or some ocean, or some mountain and we would see it all. It was great. And sometimes he'd rent a house near the ocean for a month and we'd play on a beach, and gather shells, and - and all that.
And, so, I instilled that in my daughter because every vacation we took happened to be where there was beautiful outdoor scenery. We never cared about the bright lights or the big cities. And, then, also which is far more important to me, is that my father taught me to care about people that didn't have much, that suffered and no one cared.
We even had big discussions about unions, and my father was an employer and he said, "You know, people don't like unions, but, if the owners of big companies weren't running sweatshops years ago, there wouldn't have been any unions. If they treated their employees fairly." So, I heard all of this and he also taught me that I'm a custodian of, of everything, that I don't own anything, I don't own nature and I don't - shouldn't abuse it, and I should protect it. So, I think I started out pretty good.
DT: And as you grew up, I understood, you became politically active and you were elected to the Dallas City Council later - later to a mayoral office. And I was curious if you could talk about some of the environmental issues that might have come up during your watch - municipal water, wastewater, flood control...
AH: Okay.
DT: ...mass transit, any of those things.
AH: Okay, well, first let me make one little correction. I was Acting Mayor. I wasn't the elected Mayor. I was the Mayor Pro Tem, and the Mayor resigned and I became Acting Mayor until there was an election. I very seriously considered running and, at that time, we were having problems and just very near a decision about whether we integrated our public schools, and I had a lot of people on the council, they were going to speak out against whatever the judge ruled because we knew he was going to rule to integrate and I decided we needed someone with stability on that council to speak out to the citizens of this city.
So, I opted to stay in that chair waiting for that decision. And, I sort of knew when it was coming because I was friendly with the federal judge. And I worked three weeks on a statement to issue it to the citizens of this city and, basically, it told why we needed to do that, but, it also said that I would not tolerate any civil disobedience, and that it would be punishable. And we didn't have one rock thrown. We didn't have one problem the day all that happened.
And I don't mean everybody liked it. So, I gave up the opportunity to run for that office. And just as well, because what would have happened had I won that in an election I would have left anyway when President Carter called and I became the Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 Administrator. So, I just wanted to clear up I didn't run for Mayor, okay?
DT: Thanks. What sort of environmental issues might have come up when you were in city government in those...
AH: Well...
DT: ...years in the 70's?
AH: ...quite, quite a few. One, marsh and wetlands and, believe it or not, right in this city there were wetlands, and developers wanted to develop and to heck with the wetlands. So, I would always fight the cause and tried to pass an ordinance that protected them, and we did. But, another mayor came in and - who happened to be a developer, and that was ripped up pretty seriously.
So, there's not great protection now. That's one. I could already see the air pollution, you know, the handwriting on the wall, and that's why I wanted to protect railroad right-of-ways for future mass transit, and, so, I worked hard at that.
DT: Can you tell about that effort?
AH: Yeah. I decided that if we protected some of the railroad right-of-ways that it would be available for later for some kind of light rail system, or whatever, because I knew our pollution was not factory related, because we didn't have big industry, but, it was car related and fugitive dust mostly. And we were not going to be able to get people out of their cars unless we offered them something else.
And I know it was optimistic to think we could get them out even if we had a good public transportation system. But, it was important in my mind that we looked that way and therefore, we did protect some of the railroad right-of-ways.
DT: This seems farsighted at the time. Were there people that tried to fight acquisition of those rights-of-way as being too expensive?
AH: They didn't see the need - they fought it more on a basis they didn't see the need of it, and the developers in particular, you know, didn't want to say, you know, I don't want any control over anything, whether it's a rail or whatever it is. So, I mean, it's, it's the age-old thing, developers versus the environment comes third, fourth, fifth down the line.
So uh, and, also, if you agreed to zone things with too much density it caused a problem, and I wasn't for grid patterns that had dense patterns and, yet, I knew that was detrimental in another way, because they would say, "What do you need a rail system for because you don't have the density or the population to afford a rail system?" So, it was, you know, which way am I going to go here? Well, obviously, I went towards transportation and to heck with that, you know. (Phone ringing) Better cut something here. Hello?
DT: We were talking just a moment ago about some of the impacts and controls on development, and one of the effects that always comes to mind for me is drainage and flooding and how you can deal with these floodwaters. And I was wondering if you could talk about some of the work on drainage and the current controversy over the Trinity and the Trinity forest and so on.
AH: Well, let me get to some drainage that has to do with right out here in north Dallas. When they let too much development occur, all of a sudden you had a lot of pavement put down. And, all of a sudden, all of the drainage went east toward all the homes and so they had to then put in big, you know, big sewers, big this, big that. Nobody cared, they didn't care. The homeowners had to fight like crazy.
As far as the Trinity, we could have done something to clean up the Trinity a long time ago but what nobody wants to understand is that we are at the lower end of the Trinity and all of the bad stuff flows toward Dallas. And, at one time, Patsy Swank, who was with the public television station, and I would talk about the Trinity all the time, and we wanted to do something magnanimous with the Trinity because it was in the old Kessler Report for Dallas, okay? And we would talk, "We got to go down there."
DT: Kessler was a landscape architect?
AH: Well, he was - he was a big planner - he was a big planner, and he wrote a book and all that stuff. Well, the minute I got to EPA after saying, "Oh, we've got to do all this stuff for the Trinity and whatever," I said to some of my engineers, "Listen, I have no political interest in this at all, but, if you can, I want you to look at that Trinity and see, in fact, if they can have clean lakes and recreation and all that stuff."
And in about two or three weeks they came back to me and they said, "Mrs. Harrison, if you wanted to keep the water clean, it would take you billions of dollars to just keep it clean. It never is going to be clean and, so, therefore, you ought to just protect the forests and the wetlands, and leave any mechanical things alone, you know?" So, I quit talking about doing big stuff for the Trinity.
Then, here comes Dallas with its grandiose $240,000,000 bond issue, and I worked with people here and one of them I told you about, that you ought to interview. And I thought, you know, I really try not to come out publicly anymore on local issues but this is such a travesty, and then I tell the people the truth because they really don't have a good plan on what they're going to do. And all it is is to really benefit a turnpike.
They want a toll road, and they're get - and they're going to put the toll roads on the levies, you know. And as my husband says, you ought to put pontoons there and, and maybe that'll work. But, in the meantime, they didn't care about the environment, they didn't care about the wetlands, they didn't care about cutting down forests. And they even have a, like, a rendering plant right there now, that all that waste would be going down there if there was a flash flood, and all that livestock would come running loose and we'd have to have Texas cowboys rounding up the cattle down there.
But, I had a press conference and the League of Women Voters, the same day I had the press conference, and we had talked about it - they came out for the first time ever, our Dallas league came out against a bond issue, took sides. And they took big sides against the people not hearing the truth, and Mary Vogelson led the fight for the League, because she understood all the water quali- quality. She, she understood the impact of what would happen there. I came out and, and had, like, a six or eight bullet-point press conference that nobody could misunderstand, and did it right in front of City Hall.
And what happened was that the guy from the Morning News that was there, covered it as I said it, and in the first edition that went out the next morning to the boonies, it was on the front page. As soon as the publisher saw that and the editor they call the guy and tell him they're changing that article, because they're not giving me that kind of coverage, and they moved it, cut it in pieces so it had no impact.
And, then, someone decided - which had nothing to do with me - to raise enough money to put a full-page ad in of my press conference, and they did that. And that was about six days before the vote. Now, before that happened, twenty-two percent of the people said they were opposed to it. So, that looked like it was hopeless, oppose the bond issue.
The day of the election we got 48.6 percent of the vote, and had we started earlier, we probably could have defeated it. But, now, it's coming out in the papers. The city didn't really have a plan, they're trying to do it as they go. And I just know that Ned Fritz worked hard down in there for years, and Mary Vogelson worked hard about water quality.
I worked hard to do things for the people to tell them what was honest and what wasn't. And, even though I wasn't the big technician, anyone would know that what they presented the public was wrong. So, what's going to happen with it? I don't know, I know there's a lawsuit, or there's going to be a lawsuit of which I'm not involved with, because if you've ever been an elected official of the city, you're not going to get into some lawsuit, you know, with the city where you were born and raised. But, publicly, I say exactly what I want about that.
DT: You mentioned that the media can cover your statements as a public figure or as a private figure differently. They can give you good press, bad press, no press, inside the fold, above the fold, whatever, can you tell me your experience when you were on City Council or as this Dallas Mayor Pro Tem, what sort of coverage they would give to the environment and to your statements about conservation?
AH: Very good, very good. I helped, well, I sponsored the arguments. It was the neighborhood that was so strong about it. The first historical ordinance in Dallas, which was Swiss Avenue, I sponsored that. I sponsored the West End Historic District and it was all just boarded up warehouses and some manufacturing outfits at the west end of downtown.
The press was always good to me. In fact, I won the Headliner of the Year Award. You know the press club deal every year? But see the press has changed - maybe they haven't changed but the publisher wasn't fair. And I was told by Jim Shutzie, who writes for the Dallas Observer, that there was an uprising in the press room that morning over my deal because they didn't appreciate having a story cut to ribbons and being placed in another area, and...
DT: This is the Trinity flood way?
AH: Yeah, yeah.
DT: And, so, you think it's an issue of what the publishers want promoted?
AH: Well, the Dallas Morning News has always been for that Trinity project. In fact, they're the big promoter of what's called the Dallas Plan. The Dallas Plan has offices in the city of, City Hall. I don't even think they pay for the space, and they're the ones that push the Trinity and have public meetings and all that stuff.
Well, everybody has a right to be on one side or another. I'm not arguing that point, but when you have a powerful newspaper on one side of an issue, the other side usually doesn't get told. And that's why it was so shocking to me about a month or so ago, I think it was the Sunday paper, on the front page there was a giant article about all the fallacies that were told about that Trinity bond issue.
And now everything's got to be changed. Now, what's going to happen with the lawsuit? I don't have the vaguest idea. But, they got problems, believe me, they do.
DT: Let me ask you something else that might have come up while you were in city office. I think that some early plans for Comanche Peak might have gotten floated and, certainly, Big Brown was online by then. Were there any discussions with Dallas Power and Light about the rate base or the kind of...
AH: Oh, I was the big champion -
DT: (talking at the same time) ...energy and air pollution that was coming from these plants?
AH: ...I was the big champion. I fought Comanche Peak, and I was the only councilperson that testified at that hearing. I also told, at that time, Dallas Power and Light, they weren't telling the truth about the cost of that plant because they were saying it was 777 thousand dollars.
And I said, "Would you believe, you know, millions of dollars?" and all that stuff, and then I questioned them at a hearing, "Why are you using the kind of equipment in that plant that Con Edison had in the - uh, in New York, I guess it was, and it failed. What are you doing that for?" And I questioned them about everything, and I said they didn't need the excess capacity. So, why should the Dallas taxpayer pay for that?
I also told Dallas they're downwind from Glen Rose and if there's a major, major catastrophe, they're going to get it, you know. So in a gridiron show they called me Gypsy Rose Adlene or something like that, Gypsy, you know, for Glen Rose, no, Glen Rose Adlene and they wrote a song about that.
I also had major disagreements over a rate increase as to when it should be given. And the city attorney's office, through a slip or a misunderstanding or whatever it was, let them have a retroactive rate increase on our utility bill. And I came out publicly and talked about that, and their - everybody got a rebate in their electric bill.
So, you know, you can either be an activist for the good, not just to hear yourself talk. I never, I never took on a battle, I took on a war. I mean, because if you're going to speak out against everything, you can forget it. But, I'd just sit there and, if there was something really big, I didn't mind being heard. So, oh, and I went to Big Brown, in fact, I have pictures of being there. The lignite plant you're talking about?
DT: Right.
AH: I went there when I was on the council.
DT: And what was your view of Big Brown?
AH: Well, I've got to be honest, David, it worried me that you burn lignite. But I didn't know enough about it. I asked a lot of questions and, obviously, they must have satisfied me, and I couldn't have stopped that - couldn't have stopped it. I happen to have great respect now for the gentleman that's the Chief Executive of Texas Utilities, Earl Nye. He was just a young guy.
I was older than he was when I said he carried the rest of their briefcases in the hearings. But, I think he understands about pollution in the environment. I think they're trying to clean up some of their plants. At least, I'm told they are. I don't know, but, I'm told they are. I'm told they are not nearly as bad as some places in other states. But I don't want anything that makes people ill. When I was at EPA we did a study, the Port Arthur-Houston area, Beaumont.
DT: Before we get into EPA, why don't we just discuss how you got appointed.
AH: Okay. To EPA you mean?
DT: Right. I understood that in, in, seventy - I guess early '77, after Carter was elected, you were appointed to be Regional Administrator for Region 6, which would be, what? Texas, Arkansas...
AH: Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico and whatever I left out. Oklahoma. Gary Webber, who was a councilman when I was on the council, and myself, sponsored an environmental ordinance that created an environmental commission, which still exists. (misc.)
DT: Well, let's resume talking about EPA and perhaps how you first got appointed and -
AH: Okay.
DT: - some of your adventures there.
AH: Well, I was - I was on the council and some people said, "You know, it would really be great if you would be with HUD or EPA or somebody." And, I said, "You know, that'd be good if it was interesting but I'm not doing much about getting that kind of deal, you know." Well, in the meantime, Anna Strauss' brother-in-law was Bob Strauss, who was the National Democratic Chairman, and she talked to him about it, and he said, "Have her send me my resume." Big deal.
So, then, I get a call. A guy by the name of Marshall Kaplan, who had a consulting agency that consulted people about social services and environmental things - his original office was in San Francisco, but he opened one here and we did a lot of work together. I was on the council. He was a consultant. And we became good friends and he knew I cared about the environment.
And, and then, SMU had a seminar on environmental issues and I was a keynote speaker, and it so happened that in that audience Doug Costle, who was the National Administrator of EPA, but he wasn't then, I don't know what he was. I know he was LBJ's advance man at one time - he heard me speak. I never met him. I didn't know him.
Anyway, Marshall Kaplan was a good friend of Doug Costle because Doug worked for him years ago. And Doug became the National Administrator of EPA. And he said to Marshall, "Do you know anyone in the - in Region 6 that would be any good, because they are terrible down there. They do nothing, they've never had a strong administrator. Its our, our worst region, that one and the one in Kansas City."
And Marshall said, "I know just the person." So, he names me, so, Doug said, "Do you think she'd come talk to me?" and Marshall says, "I don't know. She goes to Washington fairly frequently, I'll find out." So, Marshall calls and I said, "Well, it so happens I'm going there for a League of Cities - National League of Cities meeting and I am going to meet with Commerce and HUD, because I've been asked to."
And he said, "Well, would - would you meet with the EPA administrator", and I said, "Well, I'd love that, because that is a real love of mine." So, made the appointment, I went in to see Doug Costle. We talked about an hour and a half, and he said, "You're my person. If I offer you the - if Carter - if I can get an okay from the Senators of Texas and Carter, would you do it?" And I said, "I would."
And he says, "Don't shop me around," you know, he said, well, I didn't say I'd do it, I said I'd think about it, because he said, "I'm going to be home this weekend, here's my home phone number, call me on the weekend and tell me what you decide." And I called and said, "Yeah, I'd like to do that." So, sure enough, I'm on vacation in California and the phone rings, and it's Lloyd Bentsen, and he said, "Adlene, don't tell Doug Costle I called you first but you're our Regional Administrator."
So, that was a Friday. I then get a call from Washington EPA that, "You're going to have to be in Washington for a retreat on Sunday." So, my husband, daughter and I pack up. I fly into Dallas Saturday, change luggage and head out for Washington. And that's how it happened. Doug said, "I remember - I remember her when I heard her speak at SMU."
DT: Well now - as an appointed figure, what was it like going up against civil servants who had seniority and more...
AH: Very tough...
DT: ...job protection?
AH: ...very tough. I'll tell you what I did. The first thing I noticed when I walked in there, there was not one woman on the executive board. Not one except for the regional council, okay? And I thought to myself, you know, there's something wrong about a federal agency - and I know there are a lot of bright women here - I'm going to change that.
But the first thing I said to them, I gave them a little of my background and then I said, "You know a lot more than I do and I'm going to have to learn a lot from you. But I'll tell you one thing, I didn't come here to make friends, you know, I came here to get results. This is a bad region. You have a bad reputation and I don't want to be part of that. So, I may work you hard but, by the time I'm through, you're going to have respect for yourself and this region."
DT: Why was it considered a bad region, do you think?
AH: Well, because it was so political (phone ringing) - it was political.
AH: What I'm saying is there's a definite reason the region was so lousy - two reasons.
DT: Which were?
AH: Which were? The state - the state government didn't give a darn about environmental issues -
DT: The Texas State - AH: - the good old boys, they didn't care, they didn't care about the air, they didn't care about the water. They didn't care about anything. And yet they got money from EPA to help some of their operating budget. And the other reason is when I got here there was a deputy in place that worked with all the Senator and Congressional offices, and he was a good old boy.
And if a Senator or a Congressman wanted a grant for a wastewater treatment plan that they shouldn't even have, they'd get beaucoup big dollars from EPA with a grant. And they were disasters. I mean, engineering firms were ripping people off. They would come into a town and they would take a plan off the shelf from some other city that didn't even work in that city, just change the name and every now and then they'd forget to change the name, okay?
So, we had nothing but bad going on here and I wasn't going to put up with that. So, I wasn't there but three days when I told the guy he was out of there. And - and I was told, "Don't do that because he's a political favorite. You're going to get in big trouble in Washington with all those offices, those elected officials' offices." I said, "I know how to do politics, I'll take my chances." I never got one call - not one - when I got rid of the guy.
DT: Did you get many calls from the regulated industries? Because I know Region 6 has a huge amount of the petrochemical production for the US.
AH: Yeah, I would get calls -
(Talking at same time)
AH: - I'd get calls because we were demanding permits and things like that that they didn't think they needed and shouldn't have to do and all that. And they'd come into Dallas and every now and then, you know, I had a very long conference table, a long conference room. I didn't get that facility, it was in place, it was pretty nice, I tell you, it was.
Anyway, so you'd have industry on the right side, petrochemical or refinery, and then you'd have some of my department heads on the other side of the table and my lawyers. And they'd start berating bureaucracy and the bureaucrats and all that stuff. And I'd say, "Let me tell you something, you got a big company? You got bureaucrats. Anybody that's got anything big has bureaucrats.
I don't care if they're private industry or they're government, and you keep beating up on my people, it's going to get worse, because if you'd tell them something good they were doing, they'd want to sit at the table and work with you. But, instead, you tell them they're idiots or whatever, and I got a hard working bunch of people here. So, I don't appreciate it."
And - and that's the way it was, I was very supportive of my staff. We had big discussions before we ever did anything in my office, you know, and as my deputy would tell them, "When Miss Harrison starts walking around the table and watering her plants, you've lost her, so just don't go on forever about something."
But, the big deal was in New Mexico - New Mexico Public Service - they were building a big power plant and the fight had already started, they'd been back and forth about they didn't want to do scrubbers, and then I became the administrator, and they still didn't want to do scrubbers, but the person in front of me wasn't real tough on them, and I said, "Well, you're going to do them, you know, you're going to do the scrubbers."
And, so, I go to New Mexico and meet with their Chief Executive Officer, Jerry Geist. And he'd never met me, he had sent flunkies to Dallas. So, when he walks in the room, he knows who I am because I'm the only woman there. And he walks over and he said, "My, my, a lovely lady from Texas." And I said, "I'm the EPA Regional Administrator. Now, would you sit down and let's get on with this?"
That's how that started. So, he got really red in the face with me and, finally, somewhere during the discussion, he did that pointing finger at me and I said, "You're pointing that finger at me? Well, don't." And he said, "Listen, I know people in Washington and I'm calling them. You're going to be in deep trouble." And I said, "Go ahead, that's okay."
So, I go to Washington, because Domenici says he wants to see me. He was a Senator from New Mexico. And I go over there with a deputy of our legislative work on the national level and our Enforcement Director (coughing) National Director. I said to them, "Don't say anything in there because you don't know anything about it. Let me do it."
So Domenici starts about, "Do you know what you're going to cost them in money for scrubbers, and this and that and whatever, whatever." And - and when he was through, I gave him all the reasons why they had to have scrubbers. (coughing)
I said, "Senator, you know, New Mexico Public Service changed their mind on what - what kind of construction they wanted for this power plant right in the middle. And so a hard wire plant, to change it now, it's a little late in the day to do that. They knew they should have scrubbers, and it doesn't make any sense," and I went on and on. He picked up the phone and he called Jerry Geist, and he said, "Jerry, I never saw this woman before in my life. She makes a lot of sense. Now, let's put the scrubbers on there."
And when they were ready to have the dedication of the plant, Domenici called and said, "It'd be nice if we'd both go." So, I did. (coughing) PS: Jerry Geist and I became good friends.
DT: Well, speaking of power plants, there's been a lot of...
AH: You're going to have to stop because I'm going to have to water. (misc.)
DT: ...way to talk about power plants here in Texas. Could we start off? (misc.)
DT: I was wondering if you could discuss some of the decisions that were made and the political process for getting the grandfathered status that a lot of the power plants have enjoyed for almost a generation now. And I suppose they also extend to some of the petrochemical plants but largely the power plants, can you tell a little bit about that?
AH: Well, you know, I don't know too much about grandfathering because EPA didn't have anything to do with grandfathering anything, the State of Texas did that. The plants I worked with were not grandfathered. So I don't know anything about that. I mean, like, Big Brown, or whatever, it was a new plant when I was there.
So, if it got grandfathered later, I wasn't even around, I don't know anything about it. I could talk about it, saying it's wrong. I don't think anything that causes environmental insults ought to be grandfathered and yet that was an easy way in Texas. I don't know about other states. (phone ringing)
AH: You're not going to believe it. My phone doesn't ring.
DT: Let's talk about some other issues that may have arisen or at least gone by during your watch. You mentioned that...
AH: Oh, I'll tell you one thing that you should know.
DT: Sure. AH: When I was the Regional Administrator, Texas just was not going to conform to any kind of air regulations. I mean, they'd find every reason why they hadn't, and I just got sick of it. And there was a major issue - I can't think of, of what it was exactly - and I went down there to talk to the Texas Air Control Board.
And I sort of dropped a little bombshell. And I said, "You know, I think we provide 25 or 30 percent of your operating budget, so, I'm going on record today to tell you I'm not providing it anymore unless you conform to these regulations. I've given you a lot of time, time's up." And then they broke for a recess.
I went to the women's powder room, and the word had already spread through the staff all over that building. And there were women in there, they didn't - they didn't know me. They don't even know what I look like, and they said, "Do you think that woman means that? We're going to lose our jobs," you know.
And I didn't say a word - I didn't say a word, but PS: they conformed. You know, you can either let them go or you can make them do what they're supposed to do. The strategic petroleum reserves...
DT: Why don't you discuss the idea to set that up and some of the protections you tried to put in place for the reserve?
AH: For the reserve?
DT: Sure.
AH: As you know, President Carter came up with this idea about Strategic Petroleum Reserves. And since Texas had salt domes and Louisiana, they wanted to use those salt domes to sup- to store the oil. And, of course, to do that, they had to pump out all this saline. And the way the plan was is the pipe that was going to carry the saline into the gulf wasn't carrying it far. And I start hearing from sports fishermen and, and all kinds of environmental people, you mentioned one of them, the Stewart...
DT: Sharon Stewart?
AH: Yeah, Sharon Stewart. And they started having big meetings and I start attending those meetings, and I totally agreed with them that it was a real insult to the red fish and the shrimp and to any - to any fish, you know. And so I told Department of Energy, I'm not going to permit it unless that pipe runs way out into the gulf.
And I had my people work on, you know, I had a marine biologist and, you know, other people that worked out how far it should go for safety's sake. And they said, "Well, Mrs. Harrison, this is your president's project," and I said, "I know that. But my president is not going to want to do anything to affect the environment if you can help it. And so until I get an assurance how far that pipe's going out in the gulf, I'm not going to permit it."
So I'm called to Washington and I go to Department of Energy and sitting around and they had just appointed a general to run that Strategic Petroleum Reserve Project. And the general walks in, and they introduce us. And I don't really remember his name but just for the sake of this, I'll say Bill Jones. And they said, "Miss Harrison, this is General Bill Jones," and I said, "Hi, Bill." So I demoted him immediately.
I didn't want him to think that General status was going to mean very much to me, and that probably wasn't very nice of me but, as a woman and as someone that was in a department that wasn't popular, you have to stake your claim, and I did that.
Oh, PS: they did what we asked them to do. So you had the Strategic Petroleum Reserve intact and the oil pumped in there, and I never have known how many days that would last us in a big crisis but I really didn't care that they pump some out now.
DT: Now, speaking of oil and the gulf, could you tell a little about the Campeche Sedco oil spill that happened in the 1970's?
AH: Yeah. It happened I was in Washington when the alert came through that the Campeche oil spill had happened, and that that rig that was a Sedco rig had blown. I'm not going to blame Sedco for that because they leased it to the Mexican government, to Pemex, I guess. And no matter how much instruction they wanted to give Pemex on how you operate that rig, they didn't listen.
So it was carelessness in my opinion, it was carelessness. I've got no reason to protect Sedco but I try to tell it the way I think it was, and it was just carelessness and poor training. And so we had all this oil coming toward our Padre Island, and I must have lived down there week in and week out with the Coast Guard, who happened to be superb - totally superb in that effort to keep that oil from coming in, putting all those boons out and all that.
But Doug Costle and EPA begged the Mexican government and other departments of our government to let us go in there before that oil traveled. They wouldn't do it, they messed around for - let's see, I think it was something like ten, twelve, fourteen days. And they would not accept any help from our government, and we...
DT: To seal off the rig.
AH: Yeah, to seal off that stuff. And, and we were going to lose those turtles and, you know, our beaches and everything else. Well, by the time we were allowed to do anything, that oil had traveled. And we did capture a lot of it but, I don't know about Padre now, but for years you had these little tar balls and stuff all over there. But that was really a crisis of big proportion.
And we did a good job in our region, and so did Fish and Wildlife, and so did Energy, and so did - what is it? National Oceanography, or whatever that agency is - we were all there, we were all there, spent a fortune. And that's when Clements was governor. And he came down, and he says, "So, big deal." He actually said, "So, big deal," when he's seen standing there on the beaches of Padre.
Man, you never heard such an uproar in your life. I mean, after all, Sedco belonged to him besides. So he should have just bent over backwards. Well, it didn't take him a day to reverse all that and say all kinds of wonderful things. But that was sort of an exciting, sad time, you know, killing the fish, killing the birds, killing everything.
DT: While we're talking about coastal problems, could you tell about some of your work to clean up the Houston Ship Channel?
AH: Well, it's hard to put a finger on all of, all of our work had to do with some of the stuff that was flowing out of some of those ships. The petrochemical plants built right there and the most we could do is stand firm on either taking permits away, or if somebody was going to get a permit to make certain they didn't put all that waste into that channel. It was a humongous job.
Little by little EPA cleaned up a lot of it, a lot of it. But, I'm going to tell you how bad it was. My Deputy Water Director and myself went down to the Ship Channel to meet with some of those people. We had a lot of meetings with them and did make some progress I will say. But we walked right by the channel and it was muddy. And he had on a pair of brand new loafers - leather loafers - expensive ones. I had on a pair of leather boots.
Within very short time, Myron said to me, "Say, did anything happen to your boots that we wore that day?" And I said, "Yeah, they're all cracked." So were his shoes. That's how bad that soil was around there. Isn't that frightening? It's plenty frightening. So I worked hard. I kept making Washington aware of it. The Department of Energy came down.
I had a tour all planned for them and we took them up in helicopters right down the Ship Channel all the way out to Galveston, and just - you could see this stuff, you could see this stuff traveling on the water. It was really bad. I wanted to make people aware of how bad it really was. I did my best with media. I did my best to haul the line but it took a long time to clean up a lot of it. I don't know what it's like now. I don't have the vaguest idea. Do you know?
DT: I hear it's better. One of the things I think is interesting about the Houston Ship Channel is that, I think, for years - maybe even still - the City of Houston was one of the major polluters. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your situation, having once been on a city council, and now being elevated to work for the Federal Government and having to deal with a city in trying to help them clean up their pollution and -
AH: Well, let me tell you something, I can't remember the name of the organization that the City of Houston and the county, there was a big group and it had an...
DT: Gulf Coast Waste Disposal?
AH: Maybe, had a big, it had a name. I cannot tell you how many times I went down there and worked with those people. And they were absolutely the most bullheaded people I ever worked with. We started way back there on permitting cars, okay? And you could show them what was coming out of the tailpipe of cars. They didn't even want to have any stringent laws about that.
I never felt that we made much progress with them. I didn't believe in threatening if I couldn't fulfill the threat but it isn't because we didn't try. They absolutely didn't care. In fact, I noticed in an article in 1977 when I went to EPA, I had already warned the city of Dallas, and they were nothing compared to Houston, on what might happen to their air.
DT: And was the warning... (Talking at same time)
AH: It was like an administrative...
DT: ...and that you would withhold Federal funds?
AH: Yeah, that, that, that they would go in, not enough while I was on my watch but they were headed that way. I wanted to give them a warning ahead, you know, we gave them a small grant to put out these air monitors all over. But I can tell you how it changed the environment, the air changed.
My office was on the twenty-seventh floor downtown and, when I first walked in that office, I could look north or west and it was clear as a bell. By the second year, I could already see a sort of brown and yellow haze. By the time I left there, man, it was awful. That's how fast it deteriorated.
DT: Tell me what would happen when you looked south from your office towards the -
AH: I couldn't look south.
DT: Okay. I'm curious, I understood that the south side of Dallas has long been the poor minority -
AH: Oh, well, I worked on the, the lead plant when I was on the council.
DT: Could you talk about...
AH: That... DT: ...how environmental justice might have played out...
AH: Yeah, yeah. DT: ...either when you were on the City Council or at EPA?
AH: When I was on the City Council and we had that lead smelter plant...
DT: It's RSR?
AH: Yeah, RSR. In those days they called it Dixie something. Okay, same place. I went to the City Attorney and I said, "We got to do something there because that pollution's all over that neighborhood." And they would dig in, mess around, do nothing, do nothing. I went to EPA and we started in on that lead plant.
Well, the politics of it - it was a state deal. If the state wouldn't force them, I couldn't because that was just one little facet of my five states. I couldn't really do a lot, other than to keep telling them it's bad. People didn't care. It was a minority neighborhood. What'd they care? I cared a lot. And, now, they're still working on that place to clean it up, it's just totally ridiculous. They don't care. (phone ringing)
AH: Minority neighborhoods just don't seem to be anybody's priority. And I think it's a shame that, even though they've cleaned up, there are still problems out there. And, when I think I started back - back on that problem in 1973, talking about 27 years ago.
DT: One of the projects that I've heard about and, I think, we're going to interview people concerning is a hazardous... (phone ringing)
DT: I wanted to ask you about a hazardous waste facility that's in a minority neighborhood out near Winona, and it's had a pair of deep well injection systems. (misc.)
AH: Let me tell you about the one Winona thing, Wawona or whatever it is.
DT: Gibraltar...
AH: Yeah, Gibraltar. DT: American Gibraltar facility?
AH: That was not on my watch, however, a friend of mine's wife called me and they had a ranch near there, and she's the one that spent fortunes fighting them.
DT: Is this Phyllis Glazer?
AH: Yes. She said, "This is Phyllis Glazer, and I know you know a lot of people and so forth, and we got a terrible problem here." And so I met her for lunch in the neighborhood, and the lawyer she was going to use was my deputy at EPA. So I know a lot about it. Now the State of Texas dragged their feet forever on that. They knew it was bad, they knew it was bad. Finally, didn't they close them down?
DT: They did.
AH: But, that was a one-woman crusade, kind of. So I don't know much more about it than that. I know their cattle got sick, I know kids got sick. Those deep injection wells were not good.
DT: And what do you think about the whole technology of deep well injection, which is I guess more common in this part of the country than most?
AH: Well, I'll tell you something interesting about that. You probably don't know this, but when we were trying to figure out - not we, EPA - this country was trying to figure out what to do with nuclear waste, I think it was Allied Chemical that talked about deep well injection. And then I went out to the Ne- Nevada proving grounds, you know, where they had those underground nuclear tests, and they were testing deep well injections then for waste.
I don't know what I think about it. I don't have the vaguest idea. How do I know that it's not going to leach into our water deal? I don't know that. They're supposed to know that. I don't know enough technically to answer that. So I don't even think I'd take a stab at it. What are they going to do with this stuff? You know, what are we going to do with it?
Now, now, Allied Chemical had a deal where they would encapsulate this stuff in glass, have you ever heard about that thing? And the government wouldn't even give them the time of day. So I don't know what happened to that. That was when I was there and I went to Allied's headquarters to speak to a bunch of their managers. But, and that's where I saw all of that.
DT: Let me ask you a question about things on the surface. There are probably more wetlands in Region 6 than in any region, maybe, except Region 4...
AH: That's right, what's left of them.
DT: ...and I was wondering if you could discuss your efforts to regulate dredging and filling, and your relationships with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Galveston district in particular.
AH: Well, I didn't necessarily work with the Galveston district like the Cache River in Arkansas. That was the Memphis district and they were going to disturb all that and put a canal there. I stopped that, wouldn't permit it. In fact, when I was announced as Administrator, I came home, as I told you, to change luggage, and I found a note in my mailbox. It was from Ned Fritz.
"Adlene, if you do anything, save the Cache River." I didn't even know what the Cache River was. And that was an interesting fight. I mean, it lasted, and I got my name in headlines all over those Arkansas papers. PS: they never got the canal. Corps wanted it, gave them something to do. I never got along with the Corps. They were going to fill a lot of the wetlands in Louisiana. I beat them in Federal court with the help of EDF.
Jim Tripp, do you know him? And with the help of our Justice Department. The Corps of Engineers tried to take the permit away from EPA for years in Congress. It would allow them just free reign on anything they wanted to do. But, I never got along with them, never. I don't know what they're like now.
DT: Maybe we can talk a little about... (misc.)