William Sanjour Hazardous Waste Papers
We are very excited to announce the addition of this collection to our Chemical Industry Documents Archive. This first batch of documents will be joined by another 1700+ in the coming month so stay tuned!
In 1974, William Sanjour was appointed branch chief at the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) newly formed Hazardous Waste Management Division. In this position, he was to guide the agency in implementing its new responsibilities regulating industrial hazardous waste disposal. Increasingly concerned about industry interference and pressure on the EPA, Sanjour became a whistle-blower in 1978 in order to expose senior EPA officials' efforts to weaken environmental protection regulations. This collection contains a wealth of information on the inner workings of the Agency and the various EPA administrators, some of whom became consultants to waste management companies including Douglas Costle, Walter Barber, Lee Thomas and Rita Lavelle.
In the introduction to his 2013 memoir, Sanjour writes, "I confess I have a terrible memory and at eighty years of age it’s not getting any better. Because of my bad memory I’ve always saved documents, newspapers, and anything I thought might come in handy. However on becoming a whistle-blower this became doubly important as the government was constantly trying to invent ways to fire me. I have a filing cabinet next to me with four drawers of documents covering my thirty years at EPA as well as several boxes of documents. This collection has served me well over the years. It has provided source material and supporting material for many things I have written and said." In 2018, the 'drawers full of documents' were donated by Mr. Sanjour and digitized by the Bioscience Resource Project. In total, this collection contains 2500+ documents that shine a light on political and industry pressures on EPA regulators, as well as the pressures brought to bear on whistle-blowers in an attempt to silence them.
Tobacco Industry Documents Update:
23,548 documents added to the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents:
Chemical Industry Documents Updates:
Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates Collection:
200+ documents concerning the Bayview Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site remediation and cleanup acquired by the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates in collaboration with the Democratic Socialists of America through public records requests, FOIA requests, and litigation sources. Funding to support processing and preservation of this collection has been provided by the UCSF Environmental Health Initiative and the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center's Office of Community Engagement.
Of note are years of Restoration Advisory Board Meeting packets and 2 Petitions to the Court, with Exhibits, to revoke Tetra Tech EC, Inc.'s Radiological Materials License due to fraud, data manipulation and falsification.
The UCSF Industry Documents Library staff would like to thank all of you for your continued support and rigorous research into the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents, Drug Industry Documents, Chemical Industry Documents, Food Industry Documents, and new Fossil Fuel Industry Documents collections. Your scholarship has influenced public health policy around the world and produced over 1060 papers and publications using the documents.
Highlights of 2019 –
14,997,111 documents now up on IDL!
14,914 new documents including -
Chemical Industry Documents:
103 new Roundup Litigation Documents - includes depositions of editors of Critical Reviews in Toxicology and Food and Chemical Toxicology, journals Monsanto regarded as targets for publication planning, along with attached exhibits showing relationship between journals and Monsanto.
Food Industry Documents:
5595 new documents including -
Chemical Industry Documents Archive
We are pleased to announce the addition of the PFAS Collection to our Chemical Industry Documents Archive. This initial set of internal documents, donated by the film team behind "The Devil We Know," discuss the toxicity of C8, pending litigation, and DuPont's messaging around the exposure levels found in the buildings and surrounding areas.
Public Lectures/Talks
We had a number of well-attended and compelling talks showcasing our Food Industry and Chemical Industry Archives last year. We now have the videos of these public events posted permanently under Public Lectures on our Research Tools tab. We hope to continue to provide these talks as new collections and industry archives are added.
Bibliography Additions
New papers added to the Bibliography include: