Source: http://www.themorningsun.com, November 21, 2015
By: Adrian Hedden
For generations, a nearby chemical company was poisoning the town of St. Louis.
Opening a plant in St. Louis in the 1930s, Michigan Chemical—later Velsicol Chemical Corp.—produced several dangerous chemicals that seeped into the town’s groundwater until the plant was closed in the 1970s.
Decades after the closure, the rural mid-Michigan community continued to struggle for clean drinking water, finding its ground and only source of drinkable water laced with a by-product of pesticide DDT called pCBSA
The chemical is known to induce vomiting, seizures and can cause liver and reproductive damage.
It was found in St. Louis groundwater by Environmental Protection Agency workers in 2005, and was also the latest chapter in St. Louis’ decades-long recovery from the chemical plant’s pollution.
In just his second year as St. Louis City Manager, Bob McConkie responded immediately to the findings, calling the law firm of Robert Kennedy Jr. in California to look at the case.
Kennedy put McConkie in touch with San Francisco law firm Sher Leff and Associates, which specialized in small towns and pollution.
“That was kind of the starting point to replace the town’s water supply,” McConkie said. “It’s a rather daunting task and experience going through litigation coming from a small town. We always had confidence that it would result in some sort of award.”
Today, with a $26 million settlement and grant from the EPA, the town is rebuilding. A new water treatment and plumbing system began operations on Oct. 20, after a $40 million project in partnership with the nearby city of Alma.
“It was a good result because it not only had the cash awards, but also a pledge by the U.S. Government that they would replace the city’s water supply system. It made me feel proud to know we would end up able to have such a historic event for St. Louis.
“It’s an era that will go down as one of the greater things to happen to St. Louis.”
Vic Sher represented St. Louis’ federal case against national chemical company Velsicol that began in 2007 and was decided in Bay City in 2011.
He said the resulting settlement demonstrated the importance of the law in giving recourse to smaller communities.
“It was a classic underdog against larger, government-backed parties,” said Vic Sher of Sher Leff Associates in San Francisco.
“The courts are incredibly important in leveling the playing field,” he said. “Some communities have a legacy with chemical companies. That legacy is poison water.”
The case itself, Sher said, was complicated in that the site of the former plant was a Superfund site in 2010. Superfund is a federal law that regulates contamination, using a combination of taxpayer money and contributions from the chemical company to pay for cleanup.
Velsicol filed for bankruptcy in the early 2000s, and its lawyers argued the filing removed them from Superfund responsibilities.
“We weren’t interested in reopening the Superfund,” Sher said. “But to make the company pay for a previously unknown consequence. It was a toxic compound in its own right, and of more concern it represented the first of a lot of other things coming through those wells.
“There had been a lot of things made at that plant. It was like a toxic soup in the groundwater.”
Sher said the decision proved small towns could receive recourse from larger companies with far vaster resources.
“In the courts, a small town like St. Louis can take on a big corporation and government and win,” he said. “And that’s what happened. This was a mess that had been the result of Velsicol mishandling toxic compounds at their factory. They needed to pay to clean it up.”
Meeting opposition from Velsicol attorneys, Sher said his opponents argued that the city had waited too long, almost 30 years since the plant closed, to receive any action.
“They argued both that the city had waited too long and too soon,” Sher said. “The factory had been closed for many years. They also argued that the levels had not become dangerous yet.”
The company argued St. Louis sued too soon, since pCBSA levels had not reached “dangerous levels,” and that the chemical was unregulated at the time.
“Just because it is unregulated does not make it safe,” Sher said. “Neither the Superfund nor bankruptcy limited the city’s rights to get resources. The federal government agreed.”
Velsicol began paying the City of St. Louis in 2011, with two annual installments totaling $26.5 million.
St. Louis City Manager Kurt Giles estimated the city received about $17 million after legal expenses.
Along with the EPA grant for another $26 million, the newly formed Gratiot Area Water Authority was able to pay a little more than $40 million to install water mains and towers to pump water to St. Louis and Alma.
The newly formed GAWA will oversee water production for both cities, the first time St. Louis has ever used treated water instead of wells.
Giles estimated the system will bring water to 7,000 homes including the Gratiot County Department of Corrections. .
“It’s a very significant step with the two communities coming together to form the GAWA,” he said. “It’s a big accomplishment to be a step closer to abandoning the wells that were in danger of contamination.”
Water for the new system will be drawn from uncontaminated wells in Alma, along with water from the nearby Pine River and other bodies. All water will be treated at St. Louis’ water treatment plant, built as part of the GAWA project and partially funded by the lawsuit.
Giles said the city plans to retire its wells within the next couple of years, currently using them to create redundancy in case of an emergency.
“It’s been going pretty well,” he said. “We were going into it considering we might have some rust sediments, but so far that has not been that bad. It’s pretty good water quality.”
Looking back at the 2011 lawsuit, when he was the city’s director of public services and utilities, Giles said upon finding the contaminant the city acted fast to address the issue, forming the GAWA just months after contaminants were found.
“We were very pleased to reach the settlement at the time and go forward,” he said. “We were concerned that over time it could been a serious health and safety issue. That’s why we began right away and formed the authority.”
With a team of scientists and engineers working to ensure St. Louis water stays clean, Giles said tests will be conducted monthly and annually. He said the GAWA will keep a close look at the water quality.
“We have an excellent team assembled between treatment folks and engineer folks,” he said. “There is a lot of sampling analysis where we’re testing the water. We’re continuously monitoring the quality.”
Hopeful that his town will now begin to move on from the controversy and outcry brought by the contamination and lawsuit, Giles said St. Louis continues to recover.
“It’s a situation that St. Louis has been involved with for a long time,” he said. “Despite that, there are a lot of fantastic things going on. We are making progress.
“To be dealing with these kinds of environmental issues for so long, it’s just what we do in St. Louis.”
McConkie said it isn’t over.
Estimating the total cost of the cleanup to be close to $350 million, the former city manager warned that there is more work to be done. He said the EPA gave that estimate about two years ago, and costs have increased since.
“It is a horrible mess for St. Louis and it’s going to continue for a number of years until the entire site is cleaned up,” McConkie said. “The EPA said it was going to be one of the most expensive cleanups in region. As costs go up, it will be hard to say what the actual cost is.”
While residents did begin receiving treated water last month, McConkie said the city must continue to wait for additional funding for the cleanup as they are available in the EPA’s budget. He said according to the EPA it could take several years for the site to be contaminant-free.
“It depends on the EPA’s funding. The most going on there right now is the replacement of the water system. It is a big part of the process but in the overall scope it’s somewhat minimal,” he said.
While the danger of pCBSA itself was unknown at the time, its water solubility proved that there could potentially be more dangerous chemicals to come through the wells in the future.
“St. Louis was the only public water supply contaminated by pCBSA,” McConkie said. “It was an unknown. The danger was unknown, but it is very water soluble, and there were other dangerous chemicals.
“It showed there was a pathway for other chemicals to get into public water.”