May 20, 1985

In Parkersburg, W.Va., a million pounds of a Government-listed carcinogen are released into the air each year from a chemical plant owned by the Borg-Warner Corporation. The chemical is acrylonitrile, also called vinyl cyanide. In its liquid state, the chemical is clear and flammable. It is used to make hard plastics for computer terminals, telephone receivers and other products. There are no Federal or West Virginia standards that control emissions of acrylonitrile, and Borg-Warner says the Parkersburg emissions are safe. If the plant were in Philadelphia, however, such emissions would be double the safe limit established there. And in New York State they would be 50 percent above the limit.

Interest rates, which have been trending downward for some months, are likely to fall even further in the wake of Friday's vote by the Federal Reserve's board of governors to lower the discount rate by half a point, to 7 1/2 percent, credit market analysts say. That vote, taken against what the Fed called a ''background of relatively unchanged output for some time in the industrial sector of the economy,'' has removed much of the drama that had surrounded tomorrow's scheduled meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's senior policy making body. Expectations that a cut in the discount rate was coming had been building for weeks, pushing up bond prices. The discount rate is the rate at which the central bank lends money to financial institutions.

In significant and increasing numbers, blacks have been moving from the older central cities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to the suburban areas. Their motivations, they say, have been the same ones that prompted whites to move out decades before: the desire to own a home, to obtain a better education for their children and to raise a family in a safer setting. For the most part, black families said in a series of interviews, they have found the way of life they were seeking. But they also talked of a life that is sometimes lonely and troubled. Many said they had uneasy relationships with their white neighbors, causing strains that can sometimes lead to conflict. And they said they were concerned about the impact on their children of growing up in predominantly white neighborhoods.

Despite the production of several acclaimed dramas, Broadway is concluding its worst economic season in a decade, as indicated by both statistics and emotional reaction in the industry. What remains uncertain, and hotly debated in theater circles, is whether the slump is part of Broadway's cyclical nature or the harbinger of a long-term decline. Attendance and theater occupancy -known in the trade as ''playing weeks'' - are at their lowest ebb since the mid-1970's, according to statistics compiled by the League of American Theaters and Producers. The 33 new shows that will have opened by May 31, the official end of the season, represent the fewest in any season this century, league figures show. Box-office income - which generally rises even when other measures of Broadway activity decline - is lagging $9 million behind last season's level of $227 million, according to league statistics. The seasonal gross is likely to be the third highest in Broadway history, but it marks only the second time since the 1972-73 season that income has not gone up from the previous theater year.

MIKE ROGERS was there. Blaine Stoughton, too. But Mark Howe can't remember everyone in that photograph now, some five years later. They were playing for the Hartford Whalers then, all in their mid-to-late 20's, and all were impressed to see and touch the Stanley Cup. It was a promotional tour, Howe remembers, the National Hockey League's way of showing the fans in Hartford what the cup looked like, how the names like Beliveau and Richard are repeatedly etched in silver, how its patina glimmers in even the dimmest light. The public's look had been at arm's length, the cup cordoned off, kept within admiration's range. But in the Whaler dressing room, where the cup has never been carried in triumphant times, the response was nearly and properly chaotic. The players were allowed to embrace it, smudge it, look inside where the champagne is poured annually, feel its names. . .and imagine. ''Someone put it down for a second,'' Howe recalled the other day, while he and the Philadelphia Flyers prepared to meet the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup final that begins tomorrow night at the Spectrum. ''Then, all of a sudden, about 10 of us jumped behind it, someone grabbed a camera, and there we all were, crowded around it. ''We were in something like 19th place then, as usual. And we figured, what the heck, this is probably the closest we'll get to the cup for a while.''