These two covers, written by Ed Magnuson, illustrate something that newsmagazines rarely did: ring the alarm about a not-always-obvious danger, and then revisit the subject five years later. Toxic waste is not on anyone's favorite list of reading topics, but its threat to the environment deeply troubled *Time* managing editor Ray Cave, and he found equally impassioned colleagues in Magnuson and Peter Stoler, the chief reporter on the story and one of the country's premier environment reporters. The first cover appeared in 1980 and the second in 1985; compare the levels of toxic water and the treescape behind our slowly dissolving cover subject.
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