Source: Anniston Star (AL), March 15, 2017
Posted on: http://www.advisen.com
The Environmental Protection Agency is planning a new round of excavation to get toxic chemicals out of Anniston’s soil.
EPA officials last week proposed a plan to dig up soil at some sites along Snow Creek that remain contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — the toxic chemical that was once manufactured in Anniston.
The proposed cleanup is nowhere near the size of the massive cleanup the EPA completed five years ago, replacing the soil in the yards of 719 homes. But it is a sign that the city still has pollution left to clean up.
“There’s not really a ‘done’ for us,” said Pam Scully, the Atlanta-based EPA official in charge of the cleanup. “But I hope the community will begin to feel like it’s ‘done’ for them.”
EPA officials mailed out pamphlets last week to residents and landowners near the cleanup site, announcing their $42.4 million cleanup plan for the creek. Those pamphlets began hitting Anniston-area mailboxes this week.
Toxic product
Lots of communities saw pollution pour out of smokestacks as America’s industrial power grew in the 20th century.
In Anniston, pollution wasn’t a byproduct of industry. It was the product.
From the 1920s to the 1970s, Anniston’s Monsanto plant churned out PCBs, used as a coolant in electrical equipment. Over the decades, scientists began to fret about the potential health effects of the chemical, which is now linked to cancer and other illnesses.
Meanwhile, Monsanto buried old equipment, laced with the stuff, on its site in west Anniston — and they released it into Snow Creek, which runs south through the heart of Anniston and under Quintard Mall on its way to Choccolocco Creek.
Residents later won $700 million from the company in a pair of lawsuits, and federal officials since 2003 have overseen cleanup of hundreds of homes. But the level of PCBs in the air around the plant hasn’t gone down, suggesting another source of PCB. And local residents were concerned about contaminants still on the banks of Snow Creek.
“We’re worried about flooding, about spreading around soil with PCBs in it,” said City Councilman David Reddick, chairman of the Community Advisory Group that advises the EPA on the cleanup.
PCB Contamination Timeline
Digging and capping
Under the EPA plan released last week, workers would dig up and ship off contaminated soil on industrial properties near Snow Creek. They’d also dig up sediment and byproducts of dredging on the banks and in the center of the creek. The biggest dig site would be under a bridge where Snow Creek flows under Alabama 202. Scully said she didn’t know whether the dig would also prevent flooding on the creek.
“It can only help,” she said.
The EPA also plans to put caps on PCB-contaminated sites where “auto fluff” — the crushed remains of old cars — were dumped near the plant. And they’ll pump and treat PCB-contaminated water from a testing well south of 11th Street, the only place PCB has been found in groundwater.
The total price tag for the work could have been twice as high, if the EPA chose to treat the dug-up soil instead of moving it to a landfill. That was one of several options officials considered, according to EPA materials.
Scully said the work could begin in a year, after negotiations with Eastman Chemical, which now owns the former Monsanto plant. The EPA wants Eastman to foot the bill for the work. Attempts to reach Eastman spokeswoman Gayle Macolly Harris were unsuccessful Tuesday.
Clear as mud
Corinth, Mississippi, resident M.L. Sandy was reading his notice from the EPA when The Star called Tuesday. He owns a lot near the intersection of Noble Street and Greenbrier-Dear Road in Anniston where a PCB-contaminated patch is noted in hot pink on the EPA’s maps.
“It’s got all this obtuse technical data in it,” he said of the EPA notice. “It’s as clear as mud.”
Sandy’s property was once home to a steel mill. He used it as a lumber warehouse, then rented it out to a trucking company for parking. He said the EPA tested the site 15 years ago and he hasn’t heard from them since. He hasn’t been to the lot himself in five years.
Raymond Griffin of Ohatchee, listed in county records as owner of another sliver of industrial land slated for cleanup, said he knew nothing about the plan. He said he doesn’t own the lot anymore.
Industrial sites like Sandy’s make up most of what’s slated for cleanup. Scully said the work, once started, could be done in two years.
Fishing again
It took considerably longer to convince homeowners near the PCB plant to let the EPA dig up their yards in the first phase of cleanup. Twenty-one homeowners are still holdouts, according to EPA documents. More than $7 million of the EPA’s new proposal would be dedicated to digging up those properties — eventually.
“It’s doubtful we would ever force people to do cleanup,” Scully said. “But the properties will change hands eventually, and we’ll be able to talk to new owners.”
EPA is playing a long game with the cleanup. The goal in cleaning up the Snow Creek sites, Scully said, is to keep further contamination out of Choccolocco Creek, where health officials already advise against catching and eating fish. In 2018, she said, the agency will begin studying Choccolocco with an eye toward eventual cleanup.
“We’re looking now at tens of years, rather than years, before you can fish in the creek,” she said. The PCBs might never go away if there’s no cleanup, she said.
Reddick, the city councilman, said there’s no choice but to move ahead with some form of cleanup.
“How much cost do you put on people dying of cancer?” he said.