EPA Forces Hometown to Live With Toxic 'Fluff'
The Environmental Protection Agency held two meetings in Hometown yesterday to announce its final plan for dealing with the Eastern Diversified Metals Superfund site: The agency will allow the 350 million pounds of toxic polyvinyl chloride "fluff" left behind by a metal reclamation facility to remain on the bare earth and cover it with plastic sheeting, dirt and grass--thus creating a permanent, unlined landfill for lead, PCBs and dioxin near the northernmost headwaters of the Schuylkill River.
Only about 20 people attended the public meeting at the Hometown Fire Company to announce the plan, the Pottsville Republican reports. Among them was Ricky Johnson of the nearby Still Creek community who--like many area residents--is battling cancer. He e-mailed me last night to express his disgust with a regulatory process that's foisting yet another environmental disaster on the Hometown area. Local officials first began pressing what's now the state Department of Environmental Protection to stop the dumping of the toxic fluff soon after EDM opened its doors in 1966, but officials let it continue for 11 years.
"Be glad you were not there," Johnson wrote of the meeting. "It's all decided what's going to happen. It doesn't matter what we think, what we say. It's getting flattened and soil put over it then grass seed. Done--job finished. DEP and EPA are evil!
The fluff is being left onsite because the responsible party--AT&T Nassau Metals, now a subsidiary of New Jersey-based Lucent Technologies--doesn't want to pay to move the material to a lined landfill. But it's not as if the company were broke: In April, Lucent reported second-quarter net income of $181 million on revenues of $2.14 billion. And CEO Patricia Russo last year earned more than $13.5 million in total compensation, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch database.
It's worth noting that Nassau has been accused of shoddy cleanups at other Superfund sites, including a similar site in nearby Luzerne County. In 1990, Clean Water Action Science Director Henry Cole told a reporter that consultants hired by Nassau to clean up C&D Recycling in Foster Township tried to minimize the reported level of toxic contamination by using what Cole called "outlandishly high" estimates for naturally occurring metals in area soils. He also said Nassau resisted placing pollution monitors offsite. (See "EPA tightens oversight of industry-paid Superfund cleanups" by George Lobsenz, United Press International, June 21, 1990.)
In addition, residents in the Gaston, S.C. area have been fighting what they say are inadequate plans to clean up heavy metal contamination at a former Nassau Metals plant in their community. Like EDM, the South Carolina facility shredded cable in order to reclaim precious metals but failed to contain the resulting toxic dust, which spread for miles around the plant. In that case, Nassau repeatedly filed erroneous documents with the state Department of Health and Environment Control concerning mercury, lead, asbestos, beryllium, arsenic, and other contaminants, according to a newspaper report.
Residents there were so angry over the actions of Nassau and other corporate polluters that S.C. State Sen. Jake Knotts introduced legislation crafted by the South Carolina attorney general revising the state grand jury process to investigate criminal violations that harm the environment.(See "Change in grand jury necessary" by Pete Oliver, The State (Columbia, S.C.), Jan. 26, 2005.)
It sure would be good to see the criminals who've poisoned Hometown held to account, wouldn't it?
Only about 20 people attended the public meeting at the Hometown Fire Company to announce the plan, the Pottsville Republican reports. Among them was Ricky Johnson of the nearby Still Creek community who--like many area residents--is battling cancer. He e-mailed me last night to express his disgust with a regulatory process that's foisting yet another environmental disaster on the Hometown area. Local officials first began pressing what's now the state Department of Environmental Protection to stop the dumping of the toxic fluff soon after EDM opened its doors in 1966, but officials let it continue for 11 years.
"Be glad you were not there," Johnson wrote of the meeting. "It's all decided what's going to happen. It doesn't matter what we think, what we say. It's getting flattened and soil put over it then grass seed. Done--job finished. DEP and EPA are evil!
The fluff is being left onsite because the responsible party--AT&T Nassau Metals, now a subsidiary of New Jersey-based Lucent Technologies--doesn't want to pay to move the material to a lined landfill. But it's not as if the company were broke: In April, Lucent reported second-quarter net income of $181 million on revenues of $2.14 billion. And CEO Patricia Russo last year earned more than $13.5 million in total compensation, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch database.
It's worth noting that Nassau has been accused of shoddy cleanups at other Superfund sites, including a similar site in nearby Luzerne County. In 1990, Clean Water Action Science Director Henry Cole told a reporter that consultants hired by Nassau to clean up C&D Recycling in Foster Township tried to minimize the reported level of toxic contamination by using what Cole called "outlandishly high" estimates for naturally occurring metals in area soils. He also said Nassau resisted placing pollution monitors offsite. (See "EPA tightens oversight of industry-paid Superfund cleanups" by George Lobsenz, United Press International, June 21, 1990.)
In addition, residents in the Gaston, S.C. area have been fighting what they say are inadequate plans to clean up heavy metal contamination at a former Nassau Metals plant in their community. Like EDM, the South Carolina facility shredded cable in order to reclaim precious metals but failed to contain the resulting toxic dust, which spread for miles around the plant. In that case, Nassau repeatedly filed erroneous documents with the state Department of Health and Environment Control concerning mercury, lead, asbestos, beryllium, arsenic, and other contaminants, according to a newspaper report.
Residents there were so angry over the actions of Nassau and other corporate polluters that S.C. State Sen. Jake Knotts introduced legislation crafted by the South Carolina attorney general revising the state grand jury process to investigate criminal violations that harm the environment.(See "Change in grand jury necessary" by Pete Oliver, The State (Columbia, S.C.), Jan. 26, 2005.)
It sure would be good to see the criminals who've poisoned Hometown held to account, wouldn't it?
posted by Sue Sturgis at
1:54 PM
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