Citizens of East Liverpool, Ohio, are leaning on Vice Pres. Al Gore to keep a promise he made in 1992 to block the opening of a local hazardous-waste incinerator that’s just 1,100 feet from an elementary school. Gore made the pledge a month after he and Clinton were elected in 1992, but the administration says it later discovered that it was legally unable to block the plant because approval for its start-up was granted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. Local activists insist that Clinton and Gore could have stopped the incinerator if they had chosen to do so. Now, in the lead-up to Ohio’s presidential primary on March 7, a dozen enviro groups have requested a meeting with Gore about the incinerator. If activists can’t talk Gore into shutting down the plant, they hope to embarrass him into doing so. They’re also talking with his Democratic rival, Bill Bradley.
