bvg.adaptojen People and change! This is long but well worth reading about how things can get left out and elephants can...well, just read it and you will see!Koppers 101: Sounds Like . . . Super Fun? Friday, October 15, 2010 Photo from Koppers Zine, in which artists convey the feelings of connection and disenfranchisement observed among residents living in proximity to a toxic waste site. The work was included in the exhibit Picturing Ecology, held at Wild Iris Books in April of 2010. The exhibit was the catalyst for creating the nationally aimed mission statement of the Superfund Art Project. It’s 4:30 in the afternoon and Jill Wagstaff is preparing her dining room table for a board meeting. Her hot pink cell phone honks at her, announcing a new text message, “What is that super fun art thing you’re involved in for that environmental bad thing in Gainesville?” She giggles. It’s a young woman she knows, an undergrad at the University of Florida, looking for a lead on a local issue she can research for a class project. Later she’ll reply to the woman with the website address for Protect Gainesville’s Citizens, the local group that acquired a $50K grant from the EPA to help relay technical information about the Koppers Superfund site. Wagstaff is very clear – she is not the go-to person for technical facts about Koppers. But she’s volunteered her creative energy and organizational skills to raise awareness about the site through a new endeavor, the Superfund Art Project. SAP is a program of PGC that grew from an art exhibit held in April 2010. The exhibit, “Picturing Ecology,” was curated with pieces that expressed the environmental issues and corresponding emotions present in a community that surrounds a toxic waste site. Anthony Castronovo, an adjunct professor at the University of Florida, organized the exhibit with the graduates students enrolled in his class “Art and Ecology.” Castronovo is also on the SAP board, as is Wes Lindberg, a digital media professor from Santa Fe College who lives in a beautifully restored 1929 bungalow in the neighborhood adjacent the Koppers site. As was mentioned in the first installment of this five-part series, Superfund laws designed by Congress require EPA to publish a comprehensive Community Involvement Plan for every site it manages. A CIP is intended to represent the affected community to the EPA’s remedial project manager for the site. That understanding should play a part in the process of selecting a remediation plan. Five years after it was initially listed on the National Priorities List, the Cabot/Koppers Superfund site in Gainesville had a Community Involvement Plan drafted. That was 1989. Residents have been asking for a better one for over two decades. A draft copy of a new CIP was sent to PGC in August 2010, in the middle of the 30-day period of public comment that followed the release of EPA’s proposed plan for remediation of the site. (It probably wasn’t much help to the project manager). L’Tonya Spencer, the EPA Community Involvement Coordinator for the Cabot/Koppers site, has requested community feedback on it. The 26-page document includes a footer in the appendix for “Jacksonville Ash Superfund Site Community Involvement Plan.” Interested community members may want to review and comment on the document, particularly table 3.1 on page 13, titled “Current Community Concerns.” It’s brief. In the Community Involvement Handbook – the guidance manual for EPA Community Involvement Coordinators – there is a section called “The Letter of the Law Versus the Intent of the Law.” From this section: “In CERCLA, Congress was clear about its intent for the Agency to provide every opportunity for residents of affected communities to become active participants in the process and to have a say in the decisions that affect their community. Congress, in establishing the Superfund program, wanted the Agency to be guided by the people whose lives are impacted by Superfund sites. The intent of the law is restated in the [National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan] at 40 CFR 300.430(c)(2)(ii): —’(A) Ensure the public appropriate opportunities for involvement in a wide variety of site-related decisions, including site analysis and characterization, alternatives analysis, and selection of remedy; and (B) Determine, based on community interviews, appropriate activities to ensure such public involvement.’ . . EPA has learned that making the extra effort to listen to and involve people leads to a smoother and more timely cleanup. Most communities can accept a remedy, even if they are not completely satisfied with it, provided they understand how the decision was reached and had a meaningful part in reaching the decision.“ Supporters of the Superfund Art Project are of the opinion that EPA still has more to learn about listening to communities. Kim Popejoy is the SAP chairperson for the PGC board, and its spokesperson: “SAP is a firm believer that the approach PGC is taking is extraordinary and comprehensive. We also believe that SAP’s engagement of our local and statewide artists’ communities is unique in Superfund remediation history. Through documentation of what we do and how we do it; through making that documentation widely available to the public; through the creation of permanent works of art; through traveling exhibits; through the creation of short and feature length documentaries; SAP is convinced we can make a permanent change in the EPA’s CIP process and as importantly, make the artistic mindset a primary part of the paradigm for communities around the nation that must deal with toxic waste sites. As SAP’s tag line so succinctly puts it, “TRANSFORMATION THROUGH IMAGINATION.” Popejoy spoke at the EPA’s public hearing on the proposed plan on August 5th. He ended his list of concerns – including those related to the soil remediation plan that calls for piling contaminated soils into a large mound and covering it with a semi-impermeable cap – with a question to the EPA’s remedial project manager who drafted the cleanup plan for the site. “Scott Miller, how can we change your mind?” Miller didn’t offer a reply. So they’ll use creative license. Future plans for a documentary film are on the table, and several nationally known art galleries have expressed interest in showing fine art exhibits curated by the group. But for this Fall, SAP is planning to engage the community at several festivals with puppet shows and street performers trained to relay facts about the Koppers site through conversational vignettes. They will also have tables set up with printed information. There’s talk of a drumming event to celebrate the release of the EPA work plan to search for buried drums. Wagstaff, with her Studio Percussion, will most certainly be involved. “We’d like to invite Scott Miller and L’Tonya Spencer to join us, to interact with us, to create new attitudes and approaches to hearing the community at this site,” says Tia Ma. Ma, also on the SAP board, is a local artist and herbalist who lived near Koppers for two years. Her vision for the future of the site is inspired by the teachings of Joanna Macy, the environmental activist and author credited for starting The Great Turning Initiative, a movement that recognizes a transformation that is taking place as our primary focus on industrial growth shifts towards a more life-sustaining civilization. Ma recalls Macy’s words at a conference she attended “many moons ago . . . She said ‘While some of us have created toxic waste sites, and are dealing with radioactive waste, our job as a people is to now embrace these sores, instead of turning our heads.’ She shared the concept of making altars and temples on these sites – to teach, heal, monitor, research. Help the children know that we made a mistake, remind ourselves of these mistakes, openly, with forgiveness. When we brave the shame of what we have done, we turn that energy into humility. From this stance, we can be curious again, responsible and accountable.” Become a fan of the Superfund Art Project (SAP) Facebook page, where you can stay up-to-the-minute on scheduled events and upload photos to share with the community. Volunteer your performance skills with SAP’s street teams A technical briefing is required for volunteers. FILED IN KOPPERS 101, SUPERFUND REFORM | | COMMENTS (0) Koppers 101: Canaries in the Coal Mine {4 of 5} Friday, October 15, 2010 Last week, the Department of Health finally distributed brochures suggesting that Stephen Foster residents limit their gardening to raised beds. Small children who are prone to putting their fingers in their mouths are cautioned against playing in easements along the Koppers property, where dioxin levels in the soil are the highest. (Photo from Florida Organic Growers) You’d have thought he was applying to work for NASA, what with all the attention they paid to his medical history. But the agency approved of him and Riley got the job. And he was good at it. Really good. But a year in, his health deteriorated. Doctors put him on thyroid medication. Within a few years, he was forced into early retirement. His replacement: a gorgeous red head. A golden retriever named Forbes. “He does all my financial planning. He’s good with stocks. Not so good with mutual funds.” Anne Lowry is joking, of course. Both her service dogs are trained to help her get up and down from chairs, and move safely from room to room. Anne has Multiple Sclerosis. She, and then Riley, were diagnosed with their respective autoimmune disease and disorder during the first ten years they lived across the street from the western property border of the Koppers wood treating facility. “I used to smell the fresh cut wood in the morning, I loved that smell,” Lowry remembers. Other smells had bothered her neighbors for several decades. In 1982, W. J. Baldwin, the Manager of Regulatory Affairs for Koppers, Inc. had his burning permit denied by the West Virginia Air Pollution control commission. In fact, the commission ordered a cease and desist on Koppers’ waste burning practices altogether. They advised that emissions tested from their boiler included “hexachlorodibenzo-p-dioxins and other CDD’s . . . the most potent toxic substances known; they are carcinogenic, teratogenic, fetogenic, embryotoxic, and are acute toxicants with observable physiological effects.” The permit application had included schematics for the wood burning boiler located at the Gainesville facility. Despite the cease and desist from West Virginia authorities, Koppers continued to pursue burning permits in Florida. And in the meantime, they continued to burn. A desperate generation of chronically ill residents from the Stephen Foster Neighborhood have asked the local Department of Health to request that EPA look into the matter of airborne contamination related to the Koppers Superfund site. EPA finally ordered an air modeling analysis to be performed on the Koppers site, which began its manufacturing of pressure treated wood for utility polls and railroad ties in 1911. The modeling attempted to paint a picture of the contamination that might have wafted over from the facility in the form of “fugitive dust.” Specifically, it accounted for truck tires kicking up dust on the property’s dirt roads, an event that scientists can replicate and measure. Of course, these efforts were made three decades after citizens began lodging complaints with the Department of Health, reporting noxious odors – “a foul burning smell” – coming from the site. Data from the air modeling – analyzing truck tire dust – suggested there was no cause for concern. EPA was relieved. SF residents? Not so much. There are some questions science can’t answer. Lowry continues to wonder if her MS was caused from inhalation of dioxins into her bloodstream. Her doctors think it was. Gary Massey wondered, too. He developed MS over the years he worked at his car dealership, Massey Chevrolet, which was adjacent to the Cabot/Koppers site. He filed a lawsuit against both companies. Linda Andreson was on the jury of Massey’s civil case, which was unanimous in their finding that there was no evidence that Koppers or Cabot were responsible for Massey’s condition. “I’m a die in the wool environmentalist. I wanted to catch them at something if I could. The majority of people on the jury were disgusted with what they were responsible for. But there was no way to get them on [the charges],” says Andreson. If everyone in the neighborhood had MS, would it make a difference? Nope. The health department has to work with data: data collected locally, and data used for comparison. In the case of multiple sclerosis, there is no data for comparison. MS is not a “reportable disease.” When a doctors diagnose MS, they don’t report that disease to federal, state or local health officials. If it’s not a reportable disease, DOH can’t study it. What they can study is cancer. Cancer is reportable. In humans, at least. What about cancer in dogs? Nope. Just humans. What if every dog in the neighborhood had cancer, would it make a difference? Nope. There’s no data for dogs in other neighborhoods to compare it to. Maria Parsons doesn’t care much for the DOH or EPA. She cares for her neighbors. She’s organized all the people she knows who have pets with cancers. They get together once in a while, with the animals who feel up to walking. She’s had all the pet owners sign a Paw Print Petition. It might never have scientific merit, but the 50 people who have signed it represent pet owners who think the neighborhood epidemic of pet cancers is an outrage. Lacking any means to quantify the contaminated smoke and ash that drifted over the neighborhood over the past three decades, falling into lungs and bloodstreams, the EPA does what it can: they test residential soils for dioxins. They will not test inside homes. When the soil testing is done, they will have “delineated” the site, and the human cancer study will begin. Before she had to leave her job on permanent disability, Anne Lowry worked at a hospital as a director of nursing, and then as a director of investigational drug studies. She claims to know how medical studies are supposed to be done. “You don’t hand out a piece of paper at a meeting that says ‘What’s your name, what’s your address. Do you have cancer? Where is it?’” She’s referring to a form that was brought to a neighborhood association meeting by Anthony Dennis. Dennis is the Environmental Health Director for Alachua County Health Department. He is not a toxicologist, nor an epidemiologist. He’s made that very clear at recent public meetings where he has been asked to contribute suggestions for improving EPA’s proposed cleanup plan for the Koppers site. Dennis says the paper that was handed out was not meant to be the cancer study itself, but a preliminary form – a way of building up a database of people who might be candidates for the cancer study. Apparently that wasn’t well communicated. Lowry isn’t the only person put off by Dennis’ presentations. He aggravated the fire out of me when I heard him say “DOH doesn’t expect to find any cancer clusters in the neighborhood.” Dioxin levels in the soils may not be alarming. But when the DOH has no way of quantifying the effects of all those years of smoke inhalation – I don’t want to hear one word about what they do or don’t expect to find in a cancer study. FILED IN KOPPERS 101, SUPERFUND REFORM | | COMMENTS (0) Koppers 101: Digging Deep {3 of 5} Thursday, October 14, 2010 Stormwater runoff from the Koppers site drains right into Springstead Creek. For forty years it’s been scientifically classified as “urban legend.” But soon, Gainesville will know if there is any truth behind the eyewitness reports that in the summer of 1970, over a holiday weekend, men in protective suits buried dozens of 55-gallon drums into a freshly dug trench at the then-operational Koppers woodtreating facility. Scott Miller, EPA project manager for the Koppers Superfund site, has promised a workplan to investigate this and other possible source areas of contamination. Miller says the work plan will be released in the next several weeks, implemented not long after, and will likely use Ground Penetrating Radar, a technology that can detect soil variations underground using electromagnetic radiation, as well as excavation. If they are found, buried drums would be added to the list of primary source areas of contamination for the site. The demand for a more comprehensive assessment of source areas came from concerned citizens, particularly after old newspaper articles surfaced, suggesting that in the 1960s – the decade before EPA was formed – the burying of drums at Koppers facilities was not uncommon. EPA’s work plan is meaningful to the members of the community who’ve supported the “We want a cleanup – not a coverup” campaign, which criticizes the EPA’s plan to excavate an unspecified depth of surface soil and move it into a giant mound covering one quarter of the 98 acre property, and then topping it off with a low permeability cap, or “tarp” as some would say. The “unspecified depth” – which could be uncomfortably shallow – had a lot of people concerned that the clean up plan could put a moratorium on identifying the extent of contamination at the site. So the work plan brings new hope that EPA will dig deep. But there are still concerns, and they are threefold. First, increasing elevation with a giant mound will increase stormwater runoff. (ACDEP is currently withholding Beazer’s stormwater permit). Second, who on earth would want to lease or develop a property that has Mt. Dioxin on it. (More accurately Mt. Dioxin II. The nickname was given by Senator Bill Nelson when he visited this summer – and he heard it from his constituents in Escambia County, where the original Mt. Dioxin has its home). Third, as Gina Hawkins put it at the public hearing in August, “In 28 years of working on solid and hazardous waste management issues, I’ve never seen the state of Florida allow the construction of a permanent storage facility for PAHs, pentachlorophenol and copper chromium arsenate . . . no municipality or business would ever be permitted to store waste in this manner.” She’s right, the nearest toxic waste landfills that could take the contaminants found in onsite soils at the Koppers site are in Alabama and South Carolina. The latter is a straight shot by rail car. But the EPA’s not going there. They’re not planning to do anything to reduce soil toxicity. They say it’s money, but the 2009 Feasibility Study – the one that formed the basis for decisions made in the current proposed plan – didn’t include cost estimates for cleaning soil onsite, cleaning soil offsite, or cleaning it longterm via bioremediation. There’s no mention of cleaning the soil, period. As such, accurate cost estimates for a variety of toxicity reducing actions are still very reasonable things to request in emails to Scott Miller. Money is only supposed to be one of the factors in determining how a site is cleaned. Community Involvement is another. This community has been steadfast in their rejection of the Mt. Dioxin idea – the rule book says that should matter. We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath for an 11th hour change of state. I have a self-serving plan that’s low budget, reduces toxicity, increases enjoyment, and I’m sending it to EPA and to Beazer. Now I know full well that the City of Gainesville has been asking for this area to be cleaned to residential standards, and I understand why. If the future use is residential, then the soil cleanup target levels will be way more stringent. But I’ve been at enough meetings by now to know that EPA believes it to be impossible to clean a Superfund site to residential standards, and they have all manner of ways of explaining why that is. So be it. Here’s what I propose: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) – which are plentiful in the onsite soils – can be bioremediated. The most reliable methods include inoculating the soil with a fungus, or mushroom. Dig up the contaminated soil – forget about the one huge mound – dump the soil into lots of smaller mounds. Inoculate them with mushrooms. Cover the mounds with the tarps. Throw on some extra top soil, and open the gates to an urban mountain biking paradise. Ahhhhhh. A hundred years later, or however long it takes, the soil is clean and Beazer can develop it however they want. (Or not). FILED IN KOPPERS 101, SUPERFUND REFORM | | COMMENTS (5) Koppers 101: Purple Waters Run Deep {2 of 5} Tuesday, October 12, 2010 A slight breeze and occasional drizzle are keeping the temperature unusually cool on a Thursday morning in Florida in May of 2009. A technician has spent 35 minutes purging stagnant water from a monitoring well behind Palm Chevrolet of Gainesville. The purge water resembles the memorable development water collected during the well’s inaugural flush the month before. The well is a 97-foot long pipe, capped at the bottom and perforated along the length of its deepest few feet. It has a filter pack of course sand packed around its base, and a long pour of concrete set along its shaft – grout between pipe and earth. The tech pumps a fresh catch into a labeled jar, screws on a lid, opens a cooler, and puts HG29D’s first official ground water sample on ice. Water temperature, pH, and turbidity have already been noted. Now for comments. “Water is purple in color.” Three months later another technician goes through the same process at a companion well, HG29S. This time the sample comes from 55 feet below the ground. (S is for shallow. D is for deep). Comments: “Water is yellow coming through tubing, but rapidly turns green to purple upon oxidation in catch bucket.” “Perplexing.” Ground water from HG29D That’s the word Bill O’Steen uses to describe the samples in his internal memo to Scott Miller. O’Steen works for the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. He’s a groundwater expert, and he’s worked on Gainesville’s Cabot/Koppers Superfund site since 1999 – longer than anyone else on the EPA’s current roster. Miller is the project manager for the site, but he’s only been assigned to it for the past three years. Neither man is sure what to make of the purple sample, but O’Steen offers his support for additional investigations. Bea Horton, a Stephen Foster Neighborhood resident and grandmother of five, supports additional investigations, too. She’s contacted Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection and requested an administrative hearing on two variances that FDEP issued in 2007 and 2008. The variances allowed the Carus and Adventus corporations to inject dangerous contaminants into the groundwater under the Koppers site during pilot tests for a new remediation product they are developing. Consultants for Cabot Carbon theorized that the perplexing purple samples collected on the Cabot side of the Cabot/Koppers site were linked to these pilot studies done on the Koppers side of the site. The reason? While it contains concentrations of antimony, arsenic, chromium, mercury, beryllium, cadmium, lead, thallium, and selenium, the primary component of RemOx® EC Stabilization Reagent is a compound called sodium permanganate. It is unique in appearance. It is purple. The Cabot/Koppers site is two miles from Gainesville Regional Utilities Murphree Water Treatment Plant, the municipal drinking water source for most of Gainesville. If contamination was ever found in the drinking water supply, GRU would implement an expensive activated carbon treatment, and their attorneys would file a lawsuit to recover costs from responsible parties. Rick Hutton, the supervising engineer at Gainesville Regional Utilities, knew about the pilot study and believes that it’s highly unlikely that the RemOx® product could have traveled 1,000 feet laterally, through the limited permeability in the Hawthorn layer (a geologic layer), and still have maintained a high enough concentration for the color to be visible. In addition, sodium permanganate is an oxidant which reacts quickly with organic material. He explains that the purple sample from HG29D also contained organic residue from old charred wood. “[RemOx®] would quickly react with this and would not co-exist with this organic material.” The real culprit, in Hutton’s mind, is lingering contamination from old Cabot Carbon lagoons, the dug-out pits where toxic waste was stored in the decades before there were guidelines for environmental regulation. Although the site is considered to have been remediated, Hutton has for years asked EPA to require additional investigations for it – hence the new monitoring wells. The technicolor results confirmed his suspicions, and will definitely be a conversation starter when the Cabot side of the site comes up for its five-year review in Spring of 2011. But even if the pilot study theory proves false, it was certainly useful. It started a community conversation, an impulse for everyone to dig deeper into the RemOx® product in particular, and in the ISBA technology in general. The first offense – it reprises a theme that already won a big thumbs down from Floridians this year. It’s called “Using nasty chemicals to clean up nasty chemicals.” In the Gulf, it was dispersants. In our section of the Floridan aquifer, the chemicals proposed act more like coagulants. In-situ biogeochemical stabilization (ISBS) relies on a chemical reaction that is supposed to occur between a plume of newly injected contaminants (like the RemOx® product) and a plume of existing contaminants – in this case creosote that was used to treat utility poles and railroad ties decades before environmental regulations were in place. The “stabilizing” reaction is supposed to reduce mobility – to stop the initial contamination from continuing to sink downward into our drinking water. (The strategy for preventing lateral movement involves digging a deep trench and installing a containment barrier around the outer perimeter of the site. This method is universally accepted by federal, state, county and city experts – and requested to be completed as quickly as possible). In the case of RemOx® – the mobility wasn’t really reduced. It performed well in laboratory tests, but in actual application, the product failed. As such, it increased toxicity. EPA promises that other ISBS products will perform better. So far, they’ve convinced no one. The state disagrees. FDEP documented their concerns about the effectiveness of ISBS in a report sent to EPA on June 9, 2010. This report was not included in EPA’s Administrative Record. Gainesville’s Local Intergovernmental Team (LIT) – comprised of local geology experts, groundwater engineers from GRU, and key staff members from the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department – voiced strong disapproval of ISBS in their report to EPA in November of 2009. That report is in the AR, but apparently was not taken seriously. EPA decided on ISBS as a key remediation strategy in the July 2010 version of its proposed plan. As of October 6, 2010, at a meet-and-greet with the public, EPA is still firmly decided that ISBS is the best choice for the Koppers site. FDEP and ACEPD are complete agreement in their suggestion that EPA use in-situ solidification and stabilization (ISSS). ISSS is another method that reduces mobility – not toxicity – but it does so in a way that the LIT is more comfortable with. Instead of a chemical reaction, creosote is solidified in cement that is pumped into the ground. It’s like making an artificial quarry. Someday, someone could chip it out and use a leaching process to extrapolate creosote for reuse. But for now, ISSS is considered by local experts to be the best choice for immediate action. The second offense. It’s a business matter. With experts from the state, county and city utilities united in their caution against using ISBS at the Koppers site, why is the EPA still firm in its decision to use the unpopular technology? Members of the local Superfund watchdog group Protect Gainesville’s Citizens wanted to know. David Pais, and several other members of PGC’s Technical Advisory Committee, set out to explore possibilities, using Internet, and guided by the popular truth-seeking mantra: “Follow the money.” They returned with a curious road map: RemOx® is made by Carus Corporation in Spain. Adventus is the American corporation who imports their products and sells them in the States. Field Environmental Instruments is a distributor of several Adventus products. FEI’s president is Mitchell Brourman. Brourman is also employed by Beazer East, Inc. Beazer is the financially responsible party for the Koppers cleanup. Brourman is the project manager for the Gainesville Koppers site. While Brourman’s FEI does not explicitly list RemOx® for sale in its catalogues, it is possible that success of the pilot study could have created a situation where Brourman could have profited by selling RemOx® back to Beazer for the cleanup. This speculation points to a business arrangement that is not illegal, but it is also not endearing – not in a community where working class citizens attributing health problems to site contaminants remain uncompensated for their health care expenses and the loss of value in their homes. Mitchell Brourman might have his own personal reasons to pressure Miller to include ISBS in the Koppers remediation. And as a representative of the responsible party, he is allowed to make suggestions on the proposed plan. But so do Gainesville citizens. Right now, until October 15th. FILED IN KOPPERS 101, SUPERFUND REFORM | | COMMENTS (1) Koppers 101: EPA’s Broken Record {1 of 5} Monday, October 11, 2010 The United States Environmental Protection Agency designates the Alachua County Headquarters Library as its local repository for the most current information on the Cabot/Koppers Superfund site. Citizen requests recently yielded the first update to the repository since 2003. by Jen Ambrose Cotter When the United States Environmental Protection Agency becomes responsible for overseeing the cleanup of a toxic waste site, as is the case with Gainesville’s Cabot/Koppers Superfund site, there are certain things that are supposed to happen, certain things that are outlined in laws designed by Congress to protect United States citizens. The most obvious thing, of course, is that the site should be cleaned up. But before that can happen, an agreement needs to be made. A federal judge must approve a consent decree for the Record of Decision, the EPA-drafted document that describes how the site will be remediated. Typically, this is where the responsible party will issue its finally plea for the cheapest cleanup possible. But affected citizens can speak up, too. If some of the things that were supposed to happen in the Superfund process didn’t happen – like if EPA dismissed an overwhelming number of letters written by affected citizens rejecting a particular aspect of a proposed plan – the community can express its concerns in court, and that federal judge can send EPA back to the drawing board. In their presentation to the joint Gainesville City and Alachua County commissions meeting on August 30, 2010, the Local Intergovernmental Team – the group of experts assembled to help commissioners form their comments on EPA’s proposed plan – began its lengthy criticism with a slide: ”Process concern: Administrative Record Not Complete.” What does that mean? “The most important thing you need to do [as citizens] is make sure the Administrative Record is complete.” Daniel Parshley is offering advice to volunteers with Protect Gainesville’s Citizens, a local group that formed in 2009 to help educate the public about the Koppers site. Parshley lives in Brunswick, Georgia, where he has advocated for the successful cleanup of four Superfund sites over the last 20 years. “If you go into court with EPA, and there are documents missing from the AR – you’ve got nothing.” PGC contacted Parshley during their process of applying for a Technical Assistance Grant – a $50,000 award that is available to citizen groups through EPA by Act of Congress. The grant provides money for a group to hire an independent technical advisor to interpret data at a local Superfund site. Parshley has received four TAG awards for his community. He knows what he’s doing. PGC volunteers heeded Parshley’s advice and set out to make sure the Administrative Record for the Koppers site was complete. They didn’t get far. They couldn’t find it. They were looking in all the right places. EPA’s website lists the Alachua County Library Headquarters as the data repository for the Koppers site. That was news to the reference desk. Inquires about this collection of documents yielded an lengthy and earnest search, and a small file of unindexed binders that hadn’t been updated since 2003. In seven years there should have been dozens, if not hundreds of documents added to it. The Feasibility Study that compared different cleanup options and cost estimates – it was released in 2009. Where was it? The librarians shrugged. It isn’t their job to request these files. It’s EPA’s job to send them. Cheryl Krauth, the founder of PGC, and the other PGC board members – Erica Merrell and Kaya Ideker – collaborated to write a letter to Scott Miller, EPA’s project manager for the site. They reminded him of the language in the Superfund law. “The Administrative Record file is the ongoing collection of documents which are anticipated to constitute the administrative record when the selection of response action is made. It should be available, indexed and updated as relevant documents on the response action are generated or received.” (They also reminded him that EPA is required to have a regularly updated Community Involvement Plan for the site, and that there hasn’t been one issued for the Gainesville site since the 1980s). The letter, dated April 29, 2010, ended with a straightforward request for a new Community Involvement Plan, the Administrative Record file, indexed with a complete list of its contents, an update of the repository at the library, and a database of the data that represents the analytical results that are considered representative of current site conditions. Nine weeks later they got a reply: a cardboard box full of CDs, each containing a copy of the Administrative Record. The library received a similar shipment. Each disc contains 218 documents identified by part numbers, and a search engine (that does not automatically open when you install the disc – nothing does), enabling a user to search by keywords and document titles. Buried among the 218 documents is a PDF containing a list of unsorted document descriptions that has hand-written part numbers noted in the margins. The hand-written numbers, of course, are not searchable. Basically, if you want to find something on the disk, you have to really know what you’re looking for. Dr. Patricia Cline does know what she’s looking for. She’s the technical advisor PGC hired in June when – after an eight month application process – they are finally awarded the $50,000 grant, two weeks before the scheduled release of EPA’s proposed plan. An environmental toxicologist for over – well, she started young and she’ll tell you she’s old – Cline has worked with EPA on many projects like this. Part of her contract with PGC requires her to review the Feasibility Study, the 339 page document that details the different cleanup options considered for the site. She finishes reading it and asks, “Ok, where’s the document summary?” Imagine a concert violinist is given a recording of a full length opera, and then asked to teach it to a high school music class in two weeks without sheet music. And she’s being paid with grant money designed by Congress to serve the public good. Cline is stunned when Miller admits there is no document summary. She can’t fathom how that is possible. “The Feasibility Study was written by an outside firm [Black & Veatch, contractors for EPA]. I don’t understand how anyone on their staff could have written this report without a document summary?” With the clock ticking on her contract deliverables and on the 30-day period of public comment that citizens have to get “on the record” with their concerns about the proposed plan, she puts her questions aside and assembles a team of interns to compensate for the deficieny. She reads the Feasibility Study again, taking more notes. They make a list, check it twice, and Cline submits to Miller a request for the documents and data sets she needs to answer the myriad of questions that dozens of citizens are now asking her. She requests that these documents be added to the Administrative Record. Instead of sending her the documents, Miller tells her she’s welcome to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for them. (The canned FOIA response tells her to look for the documents at her local repository – the library – where she knows they are not). Instead of honoring her request to add the documents and data sets into the Administrative Record, Miller explains that he alone gets to decide what goes into the AR, and his decision is “no.” He makes a case of one of her many requests, a request for raw sampling data. He explains that data is incorporated into the AR when it is referenced by other documents. He admits he’s only read about the data she’s requesting in summary reports - which were written by “experts” Cline’s not sure she agrees with. Miller says it would be inappropriate for him to include anything in the AR if he hasn’t read it. Bless his heart. Scott Miller manages five other sites besides the one in Gainesville. That’s a lot of reading for one man to keep up with. Miller is correct that – initially – he did not have to include sampling data in the AR. Apparently, the authors of the 1990 version of Final Guidance on Administrative Records for Selecting CERCLA [Superfund] Response Actions were into saving trees. They said that because of the “burden associated with maintaining such documents” it was okay to include sampling data and chain of custody forms in the AR by referencing them “in a site index, indicating where the data is publicly accessible.” That explains why it is the EPA’s practice to not send these printed documents to local libraries around the country. But it does not explain why Miller refused to put the data sets in an AR that is maintained electronically and was recently sent to the local repository on a compact disc, particularly when the guidance continues, “Where a document is listed in the index but not located at or near the site, the lead agency must, upon request, include the document in the record file at or near the site.” That’s pretty clear. If someone asks for a document or data set that is mentioned in the AR, EPA must provide it. And “providing it” doesn’t mean you tell someone to submit a FOIA request – which can include a 30-day delay, and significant financial expense. The AR is supposed to be maintained by EPA, on the responsible party’s dime. Citizens should bear no expense in keeping their site repository up-to-date. And they shouldn’t have to waste their time arguing for their rights. Cline still insists that everything she requested in her letter was justified, and she’s “ticked off that they’re still playing games” with her. Here’s the golden rule, the section of the Superfund law that lays it straight: “The [EPA Manager responsible for the site] shall provide for the participation of interested persons, including potentially responsible parties, in the development of the administrative record on which the [the EPA] will base the selection of remedial actions and on which judicial review of remedial actions will be based.” – 42 USCS [CERCLA] §9613(k)(2)(B) Again, pretty clear. Citizens have a right to suggest additions to the AR. Doing so helps them make their case to that federal judge. If documents that support their arguments are missing – the judge won’t listen. So if the AR seems to build a stronger case for the responsible party, or for a weaker cleanup – citizens beware. That’s where we’re at right now. The plan smells cheap. It appears to prioritize the financial interests of Beazer – the responsible party. “[The] current Proposed Plan is not adequately protective of human and environmental health,” states Mayor Lowe in his introductory letter accompanying 76-page report drafted by the city and county commissioners with the help of local scientific experts. Their criticism includes an extensive request for documents they want added to the AR. Citizens are also submitting their comments. When the EPA presents a community with a proposed plan for remediating a Superfund site, that community has 30 days to respond. Mayor Lowe requested an additional 30 days and we got it. Senator Bill Nelson asked for 30 more and we got it. The 90-day period of public comment will expire this week, on the 15th of October. EPA has assured our community that all comments made during this time will be read, and will be included in the administrative record. What that most likely means is that an intern will read the comments, sort them by content, and they’ll be referred to in a “Responsiveness Summary.” They’ll be paraphrased in such a way so as to sound resolved. So if you shoot an email to Scott Miller and reiterate the activist chant of the summer: “we want a clean up, not a cover-up” he’ll probably chalk it up to: you didn’t understand the suggested technology of using an impermeable membrane to cover contaminated soils. He’ll say he did his very best to explain the technology at the public hearing, at an information session, in fact sheets. But hey, if that wasn’t enough to educate you – it’s not his fault. He’ll file the comment as “addressed.” You’ve got to get specific. And you’ve got to get your friends to get specific. The next few days, the next few articles in this series – should help. By all means do your own research as well. Here’s something specific. The current AR doesn’t include the most recent Responsiveness Summary. But it does include the transcript of a 2001 public hearing held on May 21, 2001. Stephen Boyes spoke at that hearing, and at the most recent hearing held August 5, 2010 at the Stephen Foster Elementary auditorium. Boyes is one of two Gainesville citizens who has a letter included – in its entirety – in the AR. (Real estate agent David Pais is the other). Boyes, a licensed Professional Geologist, spent three solid weeks reviewing groundwater documents he found in the most recent AR. “Yeah, there’s no way a technical advisor could review these documents in the way they are presented,” he concurs. But beyond the housekeeping of the AR, he has another concern. Boyes is required by Florida statute to put his professional seal on all documents and geologic models that he produces. “We have to do it in Florida, but apparently the federal government doesn’t think they have to.” The models produced by the EPA don’t include signatures or seals. Boyes says he carries liability insurance in the event he ever makes a mistake. “If no one has to sign off on these documents, no one can ever be held accountable for them.” Boyes says it’s up to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to enforce the law requiring professional seals. Other states have done it, but they haven’t. Perhaps FDEP hasn’t heard enough about it. Their address is included below. At the county level, we’ve got a lot going for us. John Mousa, the Pollution Prevention Manager for the Alachua County Department of Environmental Protection, has done an extraordinary job of publishing correspondences between ACEPD, FDEP and EPA, as well as other site-related documents and reports he has access to, on a section of the Alachua County website. This online collection is not an official EPA repository. It is not considered complete. It is not required in the Superfund process. It is evidence of a man who takes his career in public service to heart. “ACEPD worked with our County’s information services department to develop this special on-line document library to make it easier for members of the public to access and review the many Koppers documents. We think it is a valuable tool to provide the public a better understanding of the technical process involved in the clean-up plan for the site,” says Mousa. No one wants to delay a cleanup at the Koppers site with a legal battle. But if the EPA’s Record of Decision is published, and it does not reflect the clear messages sent in the interest of public safety by the community – particularly its elected public officials and technical experts – there will be war. Ideker, who’s filled out dozens of FOIA requests over the past year, says she’s disgusted with EPA. “They’ve shown a pattern of not wanting to play nice. It’s dismissive treatment. Obviously this community is poising itself is fight it if we have to.” Homework Assignments Due date: No later than October 15th. Address your concerns about the EPA’s Administrative Record to the Project Manager for the Koppers Superfund site: Scott Miller, Remedial Project Manager: [email protected] If you want your letter to be included in the Administrative Record, in its entirety, consider the following actions: Copy Debbie Jourdan, Region 4 Administrative Record Keeper: [email protected] Include a citation from Superfund law, like:”The President shall provide for the participation of interested persons, including potentially responsible parties, in the development of the administrative record on which the agency will base the selection of remedial actions and on which judicial review of remedial actions will be based.” – 42 USCS [CERCLA] §9613(k)(2)(B) Address your concerns about the need for Professional Seals and Signatures to appear on work done by Professional Geologists to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection: Kelsey Helton, Bureau of Waste Cleanup: [email protected] Extra Credit Visit the Alachua County Headquarters Library and pick up a copy of the Administrative Record. Cite specific documents you want in the Administrative Record in your letters. Sign up for an account on protectgainesville.org and participate in the community dialogue on the contents of EPA’s Administrative Record. FILED IN KOPPERS 101, SUPERFUND REFORM | | COMMENTS (5) ‹ Older posts A FRIENDLY HOMEGROWN AMERICAN REVOLUTION I grow vegetables on my residential property for a variety of reasons: to save money, to reduce dependence on oil, and to enjoy a deeper connection with food. In 2008, fate handed me up a few truckloads of donkey dung and elephant manure (bipartisan amendments). Since then, Ive been eating glorious food grown with shit from both sides. My politics have been swallowed up by an enormous love for the planet, and my neighbors. 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Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 04:12:04 +0000
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