The Beautiful Book Company, which is located next to the Jewish Community Center (JCC) on Mercer Island, Washington (near the Canadian border), is a small company known for manufacturing colorful book jackets. The process used to make the book jackets creates dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical, as a waste product. Beautiful is allowed under a Washington-State permit to release trace amounts of dioxin into the salmon-spawning stream adjacent to its plant. To date no one has suggested that these trace amounts of dioxin have ever caused any health or environmental problems. Beautiful has never been known to exceed its permit limit.

In May 1996, Beautiful received a major order for 10 million book covers a year for 5 years from the US Department of Education. The book covers are to display a strong new anti-smoking message aimed at keeping grade school children from starting to smoke. In order to meet the new contract's demands, Ms. Cohen, Beautiful Book's owner, intends to build an extension on her plant and to hire an additional 100 local workers, from this largely poor and Native American community. As a result of the new book cover contract, Beautiful Books will also need a new permit to allow it to release a bit more dioxin into the adjacent stream. Ms. Cohen has publicly promised to make a $25,000 donation to the JCC once she receives her first payment from the Department of Education.

When news of the huge book cover deal broke in the local press, the local Chapter of the Sierra Club, which has members from both the United States and Canada and which usually meets at the JCC, because Dr. Allen Verygreen a leading environmentalist who is a long time member of the JCC sent a letter to Washington State demanding that the State not issue a permit to the expanded Beautiful Book Company, unless Beautiful could guarantee that it will not release any dioxin into the adjacent stream. Sierra Club contends that even trace amounts of dioxin can cause cancer in humans and equally importantly can interfere with the reproductive cycle of salmon. Some species of which are not listed as endangered in both the United States and Canada. Moreover, it is well documented that native populations subsists on salmon and therefore are likely to have even a greater exposure to dioxin contaminated salmon. Dr. Verygreen has also sent a letter to the JCC Board of Directors demanding that they not accept Ms. Cohen's proposed $25,000 gift and further that the JCC ask Ms. Cohen to relinquish her position as JCC's President if she does not abandon her efforts to obtain the new permit.

Ms. Cohen, for her part, has already explained to the Sierra Club that if her company is required to eliminate all traces of dioxin, she cannot accept the contract and jobs will be lost. She can only promise to do her best to keep the dioxin levels as low as possible. In addition, she has stated that without the Department of Education contract, Ms. Cohen fears that she may have to close down her company all together.

When efforts by officials of both the United States and Canada fail to reach a compromise, Sierra Club sues the State of Washington to keep the State from issuing a new permit to Beautiful Books. Joining Sierra Club in the lawsuit is the Really Big Book Company, a Seattle based multi-national cooperation. Really Big, who lost the Department of Education bid, claims that the State should not give Beautiful the permit because Really Big can do the job, without getting a new permit. Really Big also releases dioxin into near-by streams, but its permit allows for a greater amount of dioxin to be released, because it is a much larger facility.

Questions: you are assigned to be the United States Judge on this case.

Your hob is to examine both the "law" and the "equities". In the United States a judge must first determine whether the party suing is likely to win on the "law." Here the "law" provides that:

1. All permits for releases into United States waters must be protective of human health and the environment. (Canada has a similar law).
   
2. It is illegal to destroy any endangered species by destroying either the animal itself or its habitat. (Canada has a similar law).
   

In weighing whether to stop a project the judge must also balance the "equities". The judge must balance:

1. The harm to the person suing against
   
2. The harm to the person being sued and then
   
3. Determine where the "public interest lies."
   

Based on the understanding of the secular law identified above, how would you decide the case: In your deliberations you may want to consider:

1. What facts do you think are the most important
   
   
   
   1. economic?
      
   2. social?
      
   3. environmental?
      
   4. public health?
      
   5. all of the above?
      
   
   Should some be eliminated from consideration?
   
2. If you were to evaluate the facts applying "Jewish" law only would the result differ, if so why? If not, why not?
   

In addition, how should the JCC Board of Directors respond to Ms. Cohen's offer and Dr. Verygreen's demands?

The applicable principals in Jewish Law include:

1. There is a duty to protect the environment from all unnecessary harm.
   
2. Jewish Law empowers a community to restrict the behavior of individuals, even on their own property, in the interest of public health.
   
3. Jewish Law would allow indirect injury to the environment in the interest of providing for the economic needs of the poor - but would constrain such behavior when it creates a risk to public health.
   
4. A risk to public health would have to be scientifically demonstrated in order to justify restrictions on private behavior.