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MASCOT, ANTI-THORIUM GROUP HOPE TO HAVE THEIR DAY

He can’t prove it, but Oscar just might be the world’s only dog who travels with his own Geiger counter.

He almost certainly is the only one to bark incessantly at the mere mention of the words “Kerr-McGee” and “thorium.”

To hear owner Mike Kasiewicz tell it, Oscar is as responsible as anybody for the long-sought agreement that calls for the removal of 80,000 tons of radioactive thorium from the shuttered Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. plant in West Chicago.

Come to think of it, maybe he is.

When about 25 politicians, corporate officials, attorneys, West Chicago residents and Oscar gathered at the Thompson Center in Chicago to announce the deal, Oscar dozed through the formalities, waking up just long enough to demonstrate his skill to the governor and others.

Whether serving as mascot for the Thorium Action Group, a grass-roots citizens organization that has battled to get the contaminated material hauled out of town, or listening to politicians drone on endlessly, Oscar, a friendly 130-pound mix of Great Dane and Doberman, rarely opens his mouth.

Unless, of course, he hears those magic words.

“We’ve put that dog under a lot of situations where there are crowds around, where he’s in parades or rallies or protesting in Springfield,” said Jim Allen, who with his wife, Jeanine, has worked for two decades to free West Chicago from the waste of the old Lindsay Light and Chemical Co.

That company made lighting elements for gaslights during the 1930s and ’40s. Kerr-McGee bought the thorium-tainted plant in 1967 and closed it six years later.

Though Jim Allen describes Oscar’s nature as “gentle as can be,” that’s not always the case. Four years ago, a group of West Chicago residents got together to protest a Kerr-McGee-favored plan to entomb thousands of tons of thorium-contaminated earth in the middle of town. TAG was born.

Oscar, who was then about 6 years old, didn’t attend that initial meeting, but Kasiewicz soon had Oscar on a hear-and-bark training schedule. He has been lobbying both corporate bureaucrats and legislators ever since.

Under the agreement, the first trainload of dirt headed for a federally licensed site in Utah doesn’t have to leave until June 1, 1995, although it could begin to roll out as early as September.

Oscar, like his human counterparts, has fought this battle too long to take it on faith alone that all will finally be well in West Chiacgo.

“Oscar is a bit of a skeptic, you know,” Kasiewicz said. “He isn’t going to believe it until the first trainload rolls. But now he’s cautiously optimistic that this time we’ve got them, finally.”