What makes ordinary rain falling in the Delaware River toxic enough to violate Environmental Protection Agency rules? And how can the EPA allow recycling plants to use old newspapers contaminated with much larger amounts of the same toxic substance? And why should that generate a national crisis?

Doug Krapas told me that riddle because he’s the environmental manager of the Spokane, Wash., Inland Empire Paper Company, which uses old newspapers and magazines as a major component in its paper production.