Once the national mourning ends, he implies, we need to learn to feel safe again - and to realize that we are more at risk from heart attacks than from hijackings.

All of this has me thinking about how we think about risks, and particularly chemical risks where terrorism may play a role, in the days that lie ahead. It seems that these times are calling on us on the one hand, to address the vulnerabilities that the realistic threat of terrorism exposes, and on the other hand, to resist the fear that is the goal of terrorism.

A PATRIOTIC CALL TO HAZARDOUS TRAVEL?

The same day that Bush made his call for air travel we also learned on the news that Logan Airport is no safer than it was before the September 11th terrorist attacks. Since the attacks security personnel were able to smuggle knives onto a plane. Two days before, in Business Week I read about ceramic knives -- some of them sold under the name "Frequent Flyers" because of their ability to bypass all X-ray machines. Right after the announcer talked about Bush's new message that it is safe to fly, the next news report indicated that the military now has clearance to shoot down planes commandeered by hijackers.

But Bush says about the airlines: "Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots…." He has a longer term plan to restore safety, but wants people to get on board NOW - even though there are these obvious holes in security. Do I detect a subtext -- flying in the face of our fears is now the patriotic thing to do? A necessary thing to restore our hurting economy?

There is something all too familiar in this call for us to accept risks on behalf of the economy. Where do we draw the line between recognizing our unmasked vulnerabilities, and sucking in our guts as a true patriot and flying the unfriendly skies?

THE CHEMICAL CONNECTION

Which brings me around to thinking about chemical accident hazards, which have taken on new significance now that the unthinkable has come to pass.

Community and environmental activists have been warning for the last 15 years that chemical plants and transportation pose a danger of chemical disaster. The stockpiling of enormous amounts of hazardous materials could lead to an incident like the Bhopal India Union Carbide disaster - an incident which killed probably double the number of people who died in the September 11th tragedy. Interestingly, Union Carbide blamed that disaster on sabotage. Although others have roundly denied that as the cause of the incident, the claim of sabotage takes on new significance after September 11th. Whether a hijacker flies into a chemical plant, or an inside job at a plant unleashes an enormous chemical cloud on a community, or a trainload of deadly cargo is exploded near an urban area, we can no longer afford to discount this real vulnerability of our communities.

Just as the airlines have fought against effective regulations to require stronger screening systems and security at airports, the lack of which proved a strong contributory factor to the tragic events of September 11th, the chemical industry has also fought effectively against measures which would require application of technologies to curtail the stockpiling and transport of chemicals and thereby reduce the potential scale of a worse case disaster.

NOW WE KNOW: WHAT WE DON'T KNOW CAN HURT US

One of the key ways that industries make us less safe is by secrecy. The airline industry also effectively buried from public view most of the key information related to the lack of security at airports like Logan. The chemical industry has succeeded in making some of the information on chemical plant vulnerabilities secret on the basis of concern about access to that information by terrorists. After the recent attacks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency further limited access to information about the hazards at local plants, taking certain relevant info off of its website. Secrecy was no solution for the airlines, it is no solution for the chemical industry either.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

In the mid 1990's the environmental community made an effort to promote effective policies for addressing these issues; the work done at that time sits on the shelf.

Perhaps it is time to dust off those reports and policy recommendations. We can make them available to the communities where they can be used. We can reinvigorate alliances between community groups and unions on these issues. We can to look at what Congress can do to require chemical plants to eliminate large dangerous stockpiles in populous areas.

But the most pressing need is for those concerned about this issue to talk amongst ourselves as to how to approach this. Out of this tragedy a previous safety agenda has new poignancy. But can we approach this in a way that is not simply "giving in" to the terrorists? That rebuilds and strengthens our economy? That taps America's new unity to effectively address vulnerabilities that we now understand to be very real indeed? The time to begin that conversation is now.

Sanford Lewis is an attorney in Waverly, Massachusetts.

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