The Beer Can Ballots

Voters' passions this fall seem to have been aroused less by the candidates than by controversial propositions placed on the ballot by ardent environmentalists in some dozen states. Among the hottest environmental issues to be decided by the voters:

DISPOSABLE BOTTLES. Until Democratic Senatorial Candidate Don Riegel acknowledged having had an affair with an office worker in 1969, the greatest interest in the Michigan election was stirred by a proposition to ban throw-away bottles and cans, which make up an increasing proportion of the nation's litter. Disposable-bottle bans are also on the ballot in Colorado and Massachusetts, where approval will bring a deposit of at least 5-c- on every soft-drink and beer container, and in Maine, where the voters must decide if they want the bottle ban enacted last April by the state legislature to be enforced.

Opponents of the bottle proposal have mounted a major campaign in Michigan, taking to the air waves and attaching campaign stickers to six-packs. Says a Michigan union official about the environmentalists: "Those kooks are out of their minds to bring this up right now." He predicts that about 800 bottle-manufacturing jobs will be lost in his state if the proposed ban takes effect. Truckers in Massachusetts charge that their vehicles will become infested with vermin if they are forced to carry dirty bottles back to recycling centers. Others warn that the bottle proposals will cost the average consumer $100 a year and will not limit littering. Says one anti-bottle bill campaigner: "A slob is still a slob, and a 5-c-or 10-c- deposit won't deter him."

But Oregon officials insist that the state's three-year-old ban on no deposit-no return containers has significantly thwarted litter bugs, and a similar law in Vermont reduced can and bottle litter on the highways by 76% during the first year it was in effect, cutting cleanup costs by 20%.

CONSERVATION. Voters in Missouri are being asked to approve an unusual way of financing the state's conservation programs, including the possible acquisition of some 200,000 acres of land for hunting reserves and wildlife refuges. Their ballot contains a proposal to levy an additional sales tax of one-eighth of 1% and put aside the revenues, which are expected to exceed $20 million a year, for conservation. Opposition to any tax increase and fears that the earmarked funds may siphon off for conservation projects money that is needed elsewhere have aroused unexpected controversy about the proposal. "It may be too close to call," says Robert Van Ark of the Missouri Public Expenditures Survey. "At first I thought it was a shoo-in--it's like motherhood, being for the ducks. But now I think it's not."

Equally uncertain is the outcome of a ballot measure , to repeal a law limiting the number of salmon fishermen in Alaska. Backers of the so-called limited-entry law claim that it is necessary to protect Alaska's rich fishing grounds from being depleted. Opponents insist that the right to choose one's occupation is a basic freedom that must be safeguarded.

NUCLEAR SAFETY. By far the most important of the environmental issues to be decided at the polls are proposals to impose strict restrictions on the construction of nuclear power plants in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Ohio, Oregon and Washington. Aware that the defeat of California's nuclear proposition last June may have been caused by fears that existing nuclear plants might have to be shut down, thus causing unemployment and economic loss, environmentalists are concentrating on future nuclear-plant construction. In general their proposals would remove the $560 million federal limit that now exists on the total amount of damages that could be claimed by victims of a nuclear accident; forbid new plants to operate unless the state's legislators were convinced that all major safety systems would operate properly in an emergency; require that the legislators be satisfied that the plants had made provisions to transport nuclear materials securely and dispose of them safely.

Antinuclear forces--aided by $75,000 in contributions from Folk Singer John Denver--have waged effective campaigns that may carry the antiplant proposals in Oregon and Colorado. But they have been more heavily outs pent --by a ratio of 7 to 1 in Washington, for example--by utilities and other pro-plant forces, which fear that passage of the proposals will effectively halt any future construction of nuclear power facilities.

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