1 CITIZENS INFORMATION COMMITTEE MINUTES OF JUNE 13, 1995 MEETING Attendees Deb Backhus, IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs Mike Baker, Coalition Opposed to PCB Ash Resa Ramsey, Indiana Department of Environmental Management Marti Crouch, Near Westside Neighborhood Association George Hegeman, Monroe County Board of Health Sally Hegeman, League of Women Voters Diane Henshel, IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs Dawn Hewitt, The Audubon Society Dan Hopkins, U.S. EPA Remedial Project Manager Iris Kiesling, Bloomington City Council John Langley, Bloomington PCB Coordinator Michael List, Private Citizen, CIC Chair Dave Novak, U.S. EPA Community Involvement Coordinator Brian Pence, People Against the Incinerator Alex Tzallas, U.S. EPA Assistant RPM Observers Patricia Cole, City Council Dan Cortes, Rodger DiVincenzo, Westinghouse Kyle Dreyfuss, IU SPEA Bill Hayden, Sierra Club Joe McMahan, Westinghouse Greg Moore, APACHE Jim Patrick, Westinghouse Dave Porter, Citizen John Rose, IDEM Louis Schwitzer, COPA Robin Gnagni Approval of Minutes The minutes were approved with the following changes. Ramsey said that on page 10, line 9 that Carrasquero meant to say "The deadline for completion of the study is July 1st." She said that where Carrasquero said yes on page 10, line 12, that she meant to say that "this is being considered." On page 10, paragraph 7, Carrasquero meant to also say "What will be released for public comment will be a completed feasibility study report." Also, on page 4, paragraph 9, piece mill should be "piece meal". Update on the Indiana Woodtreating Plant EPA's Steve Faryan said that EPA completed the removal action at the Indiana Woodtreating Plant. He said that EPA was able to get the contaminant levels to below any health 2 based standards. He met with the city and county to discuss their interest in taking over the property but those two parties are not interested. There is a private party also interested in the property but EPA wants to make sure that whoever goes in there will not cause any further releases. Faryan said that the EPA is open to other ideas from the community regarding the future land use of that site. Faryan said that there is still some groundwater contamination even though EPA cleaned the soils, removed the drums, and paint wastes. He said that there is residual contamination underneath the building, west of Clear Creek. He handed out some additional informational and the sampling data. He said that there are about 42 acres of good land that could be used and that the land could not be used for residential purposes because it is in a flood plain. Porter wanted to know what the future liability would be for the new landowner. Faryan said that the new owner would have to continue the operations and maintenance of the collection system on the site and collect the creosote and run it through a carbon filter. Porter suggested that "the land trust", an entity may be interested in the property. Faryan said that he would talk to them about it. Pence wanted to know if the groundwater was contaminated. Faryan said that EPA sampled some wells downgradient of the site and found one well that was used for horses with some naphthalene in it. It was about a 1/2 mile from the site. They spoke to the owner and suggested that he refrain from using it. All of the homes in the area are on city water. Porter said that just because the homes are on city water does not mean that it is okay to screw up the groundwater. List said that no one was saying that it is okay for the groundwater to be contaminated, "rather it is used as a point of reference". Faryan said that what that means under the Superfund Removal program is that if it is below the drinking water standard, then he cannot address it. Faryan said that EPA plans to continue operating the collection sump around the building. Schwitzer asked who would underwrite the cost of continuing that collection system. 3 Faryan said that they are trying to work with who ever purchases the land and the county to continue the operations and maintenance of the property. Schwitzer said that it sounds like the facility has not been cleaned up. Faryan said that the site has been cleaned up to below the health based standards. He said, however, there is some residual contamination around the building on the site. The Superfund Removal program cannot work on that site indefinitely under the law, so EPA will pass that responsibility along to the county or the new property owner. Pence said that we do not have a cleanup if contamination is leaching into a well one-half mile away. George Hegeman said that there is a history of 25-30 years of contamination at the site. He said that the leaching into the groundwater is not a result of the cleanup but of the long term insult to the land from the operation there. Faryan said that the last sampling results at the site showed 28 ppm total creosote contamination. He has discussed this with several other remediation scientists and all agree that they would do more environmental harm to remove the sediments from the creek bed than good, especially since they have gotten below the health based standards. Moore suggested that before EPA makes a theme park out of a Superfund site, that they cleanup the entire site including the creek bed and soil before they expose our children and animals to the contamination. Moore said that he did not want EPA people from Chicago and D.C. to come into his community and tell them to make a rails to trails park out of their creek. Valentin asked if EPA had done any testing related to groundwater flow. Faryan said that EPA put in some monitoring wells and met with a local hydrogeologist that Hopkins uses, (Dick Powell) and the recommendation was to sample a deep well that was used on site that was sampled, a shallow aquifer was also monitored for surface water and any wells downgradient of the site were sampled. Valentin asked if EPA could demolish the building. If they could would they be able to come back in and do a removal if additional contamination was found. 4 Faryan said that he could not demolish the building but they could come back and do a removal action if additional contamination was found when the building was demolished. Faryan said that the building was made of iron and had an asphalt base and limestone chips scattered on top of the asphalt. Faryan said the removal program's standards are 500 ppm polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), 100 ppm carcinogenic. He said that the remedial programs standards are 100 ppm PAHs and 10 ppm carcinogenic. List reiterated that the cleanup is below the health based standards that EPA must meet. List asked what happens to the water once it is collected. Faryan said that the water is treated using a carbon filter and recharged upgradient to help flush the material out. Remedial Activities Hopkins said that 133 rail cars had been taken away from the ABB site, about 12,500 tons of material. Hopkins said that the operation looks good. Regarding the Fell site, Westinghouse proposed shipping the material from Fell to USPCI in Utah and EPA held a public meeting to receive public comment related to that proposal. EPA is reviewing those comments and may reach a decision by the end of the month. That public comment period and its extension ended two days ago. Quality Assurance Plan for Monitoring Well, Residential Well, and Spring Sampling Hopkins said that EPA received several comments regarding the quality assurance plan (QAP). EPA has a quality assurance organization in EPA's Region 5 office that reviews and approves or disapproves of the QAPs. In April, Westinghouse submitted a QAP for groundwater monitoring of PCBs. Earth Tech's QAP addressed other contaminants like volatiles, semi-volatiles, PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, and furans. EPA submitted Earth Tech's QAP to their regional quality assurance organization and Earth Tech updated the document. The first section was rewritten because it was closely correlated to what Westinghouse wrote. EPA also integrated the concerns related to quality assurance. Earth Tech made these revisions and submitted it as the final. This was approved by the EPA quality assurance organization. Backhus asked what was revised. Hopkins said that much of the beginning text was written like Westinghouse's QAP and there were several objections to that. EPA is ready to begin the Lemon Lane well and spring sampling. 5 Valentin asked what the extent of radius would be for the residential well sampling. Hopkins said that he thinks it will be 5000 feet. Hopkins said that they still need to come to an agreement about specifically which wells get sampled. Porter asked if this was the first time that EPA did quality control at the site. He did not think that Westinghouse used a high level of quality control during the dye trace. Hopkins said that you are restricted physically by what a dye can do sometimes. Porter said not having quality control during a dye trace is sloppy work. Porter said that you have one well where dye did not get out of on any of the tests. Hopkins said he was aware of that. Hopkins said that there are tradeoffs. He said that this is a case of where a well was used that was tight. The test was repeated three times and they continued using the tight well. Hopkins said that switching between tests will draw criticism about compatibility between tests. Porter asked if EPA would compare future results with those dye trace results. Hopkins said that the trace data are very useful. It helps to establish a pathway from the landfill to a potential receptor. Porter said that our level of not knowing is a lot higher than people are willing to admit. Valentin said that the dye trace shows that in certain flow conditions that the dye went in several directions. She said that she would not spend any additional money on dye trace but on dioxin sampling. Hopkins said he would agree that chemical testing should be the emphasis. Schwitzer said that in lieu of scarce EPA dollars that EPA has very selective utilization of the consent decree. He said that there is a 150 million dollar bond according to the consent decree but EPA will not do anything to get that money. He said that it is ridiculous for EPA to be watching pennies when they have millions set aside to be used for this project. Hopkins said that he is not saying that they have to do an inferior job but that EPA must spend its money carefully. 6 List said that the concept of the consent decree is to spend that money within the framework of the consent decree. He said now that the parties are going in an alternate path, this may or may not be true. Schwitzer said if that is the case, then scrap the consent decree and start over. He suggested starting with an RI/FS. Hopkins said that the level of effort today is much more extensive than many RI/FSs. Hopkins said that the remedy for many landfills is a cap, pump and treat, or a limited excavation. Valentin said not if you are being protective when it is in karst. Valentin said that some landfills can be capped and left in place and collect the water. She said that in this case, it is not appropriate. Hopkins said that you need a thoughtful and reasoned approach so that you can get to a reasonable remedy. Valentin said that she thinks that it needs to be a phased approach and she has not seen the conceptual sampling plan presented in this way. Her impression is that no more will be done than what is in the plan. She thinks that this plan is a good first step, but much more is needed. Moore said that he would like the government parties to enforce article 19 paragraph 96 of the consent decree. He said that if one of the parties would intervene and object to this financial condition then the money would be there so that the sites could be cleaned up. He said that the situation at Winston-Thomas and the Illinois Springs was not brought on by eco-terrorism but by bureaucratic mamby pamby. Baker said that the problems COPA found with the mini-QAP, the new directions paper, etc. is that EPA says that they do not agree with certain aspects of these papers, yet EPA and the other government parties' names are on them. COPA's comments are that EPA should be providing oversight and setting some parameters for Westinghouse to follow rather than taking a Westinghouse prepared document and telling Westinghouse to follow what Westinghouse has prepared. Hopkins said that the two QAPs are work products of numerous meetings of all of the parties and what they have come to agreement on. Porter asked if the minutes of those meetings are available for the public to see so that they can see what some of the disagreements are. Hopkins said that they do not have minutes of the technical discussions but the public is welcome to see the work 7 products that come out of those meetings, like the field sampling plan. Porter asked how the community is supposed to have confidence in the credibility of this process. Hopkins answered that the efforts can be judged by looking at the work product. Hopkins said that all of the parties are working extremely hard. The parties are cognizant that all of the work is not showing tangible results. He said they may not be satisfied with that but they have to go through it. EPA is recognizing that through the effort that the parties are resolving some of their key differences. He said that EPA is criticized for being too slow and criticized if they overlook something in their effort to move at a faster pace. Porter asked if Hopkins remembers that the goal is to destroy PCBs. Hopkins said that destroying PCBs is not the goal. He said that EPA's goal is to be protective of human health and the environment. Porter said to not destroy the contamination is pushing into the future to be dealt with later. List said that if there is not a way to destroy it then you may have to sequester it until you have a way of destroying it. List said that for a number of years that the community worked to delay or halt the remedy selected. List said that the parties are now discussing amongst themselves a way to look at the problem without the past remedy. Baker said that COPA's major concern is that EPA stands up at public meetings as a partner with Westinghouse which provides for little oversight of the responsible party. He said that two recent events give EPA a tremendous opportunity to flex their muscles and pursue some stronger avenues for cleaning up the situation. You have Winston- Thomas, a site that could be easily remediated, pushed 750,000 gallons of water off the site into one of our creeks. You have springs running through Lemon Lane that have 1400 ppm PCBs. It's a good example of what can continue to happen if you do not clean up the landfill. Hopkins has said that it is not what is presently coming out of Lemon Lane that worries him, but what could come out of there in the future. Baker said that what Westinghouse wants and what the community wants is completely different but if the community does not push it, there will not be a cleanup. He said that there are groups all over the country meeting with PRPs and governmental agencies asking them to find common ground and then make a proposal. No where in this process is the community involved. Is that what is happening here 8 ... a charade of a done deal. COPA found a document written by Westinghouse that asked EPA if the incinerator were not built and they were still held liable then they thought that was absurd. COPA has not found EPA's response to that letter. When you see things in writing like this letter, it makes you question what is motivating this process. Baker said that he would like to see the PCB sites cleaned up like the creosote site. It is not 100% but it is a cleanup and it is below health based standards. Hopkins said that he appreciates what Baker says and from his seat it is not always comfortable listening to what Baker says, but he feels that it is healthy. He says that the community is involved and do have input into the process. He gives the community draft work plans to comment on so if they find a problem before the document becomes final, then they think the document is a problem. He said that is frustrating but something that is necessary if the public is going to be involved. Baker said that they would like to be assured that the path we are moving in is not a done deal. Baker said that many people are trying to get over their inherent mistrust of government even though they did not come to the table with mistrust. Novak said that Hopkins is not sitting back in Chicago sleeping. Baker said he believes that Hopkins is working in the best interest of the public but then they get frustrated when they hear EPA say one thing and then Westinghouse something entirely different. No one ever comes back and says no this is the way it will be. Baker said that Winston Thomas flooding into the community was preventable and he would like EPA to enforce some measures at these sites. Pence said that part of the frustration is that he asked Hopkins at a meeting a few months ago if Westinghouse could drain the pond at Winston-Thomas and treat the water and scoop up the sludge. Hopkins said that they could not do that because it was not posing an immediate threat to health and the environment. He said that it has been predicted for a long time. He asked how many stupid things were going to happen before EPA would act on them? Pence said that regarding Illinois Central Springs that the community has been asking for a fence there for years. Hopkins said that the numbers have been too low to put up a fence in the past. Hopkins said that as this process moves forward that EPA may find changes in the way they looked at things before. 9 Pence asked if Winston-Thomas has poked a big enough hole to warrant action now. Hopkins said he thinks that it has. Conceptual Plan to Examine the Fill Material at the Lemon Lane Landfill Hopkins said that they had to postpone the work out there for a week because the geophysical equipment did not arrive. They are going to do a geophysical survey looking for metallic material so that will help them with the next phase of the survey which is placing the borings so that they can find areas with capacitors and sample that area. It will also help them in locating refrigerators and car bodies, so that they do not drill into those type items. He said that they will be out there the week of the 19th doing the work. Hopkins said that the procedure uses electromagnetic radiation and is the best machine to do it. Dioxin Detection Limits in Parts Per Quadrillion Hopkins said that EPA is using the parts per trillion as the detection limit and that is a special analytical laboratory service and there are no plans to detect to the parts per quadrillion level on EPA's part, at this time. Baker said that there is a company named Millipore that will have a test kit on the market within 6 months that will detect 2, 3, 7, 8 TCDD in parts per trillion to parts per quadrillion for about $120 per test. Hopkins said even so what about the dioxin-like compounds, other dioxins and other furans and co-planar PCBs. Hopkins said that he is not saying no but he would like to move forward with the current plan to test in parts per trillion. Update on IDEM Feasibility Study Baker said that he would like to say something about the New Directions brochure rather than the new directions of Winston-Thomas to Clear Creek. He said that there was a lot of good information in it but that the focus of the New Directions is supposed to be about alternatives to incineration and the only alternative pointed to in this brochure is landfilling. He said that the chart in the ATSDR section was based on data in 1992 and it all points to landfilling. He said that some of the technologies that they listed as not viable have since become commercially available. Hopkins said that when he read this and it said that ATSDR said something, he wanted to make sure that ATSDR was okay with what the parties were saying that they said. He said 10 that ATSDR received a copy and submitted comments. I do not know if the comments were reflected. Baker asked if the community read this would they not think that it was endorsed by the parties. Hopkins said that they might. Baker said that he thought it was a shame that EPA was letting Westinghouse dig a hole for them and the good work that EPA does makes other get bogged down in the bad stuff that others have done for you. Hopkins said that unfortunately reviewing the newsletter was not a priority for him but he would be more vigilante about it in the future. Crouch said that she thought the format of the Fell meeting did not lend itself to getting the most comments from the public. She thought that if you let people ask questions and comment at the same time then it might allow more people to be able to comment. By having all of the questions first and the comments last, several people have left before the comment period begins. Hopkins said that there were good comments and that he also noticed that several people left before they made their comments. He said that he thought people would want to ask questions to get clarification before making their comments. Crouch said that there is a great deal of difference in technical tolerance. Some people are willing to sit through more than others. Novak said that it is the comment that derives EPA's decision and it is not EPA policy to respond to the comments on the spot. In a formal public comment period, EPA responds to the comments in a responsiveness summary. He said that the only way that the format could be changed is if the person asking the question or making the comment identifies which they are doing. Novak said that if anyone would like the transcript of the Fell meeting that they are available at the PIC. Winston Thomas Treatment Plant Spillage Issue Langley said that he does not think that there is a good excuse for what happened at Winston-Thomas. Langley said that the City's utilities department keeps rainfall data in several areas of the city. Bloomington had a great deal of rainfall during the week of the Winston-Thomas overflow. On the east side of the lagoon, there is a 39 inch sewer that 11 serves the area south of 13th street in the center of town. He showed a map of the area and where the equipment failed. Langley showed where there was a bypass structure at the SE corner. He said they installed pumps that were sized by an engineer. Langley showed with visuals how the bypass system worked. Langley said that on a normal day at Dillman Road, the pumping is about 9.9 million gallons per day but during this week it soared to about 40 million gallons per day. Unbeknownst to the City, a baffle broke allowing access of this influent water to a 12 inch bypass into the lagoon eventually exceeding the volume of the lagoon. This bypass structure was installed in the 60's because the facility was undersized for a large storm event. They would cap the plant at an 8 million gallon capacity, allow the water to build up and bypass to the lagoon and treat it later. Henshel asked at what level is the sewer? Langley said that the discharge looked like drinking water. He said that you can tell if you are passing sludge. Langley showed a chart showing the drinking water action level and the Winston-Thomas Lagoon sampling results. Langley said that IDEM was invited to participate and in fact directed the sampling event. He said that sample 1 and 5 were surface samples. He said that surface water was roughly .28 micrograms per Liter. He said that sample 2 had .12 ppb. IDEM wanted a sample below the lagoon and that result was below a quantifiable level. Sample 4 was .12 ppb and Sample 6 showed .11 ppb. The city has permanently sealed that 12 inch bypass structure. They are also going to drop the level of water about 12 inches. Valentin asked how often the city tests for PCBs. Langley said that they test for PCBs in the water and sludge monthly per the NPDES permit. Langley said that the city is putting in a fail safe alarm which means that if the electricity goes off then the alarm goes off. He said that if this becomes a problem again then they will know about well in advance. He said that IDEM noticed a problem with deteriorating grout in the 39" interceptor and that is being repaired this week. Langley said that they thought what happened was impossible but found out it could happen. He said that the city would like to the community for what happened and they hope they are prepared for something like this in the future. Valentin asked if the city sampled Clear Creek. Langley said yes. Henshel asked why it took so long to report it to the newspaper. 12 Langley said that he was working on getting the water stopped. Pence asked if he could have taken 5 minutes and called IDEM as required by law. Langley said in retrospect, he would have done it in the first five minutes. Langley said that the reason he did more extensive sampling was because one of his samples were frozen and could not be used. Henshel said that it is possible that some of that .12 that is being seen downstream is dilution from the .23 Langley said that he does not think that is possible. Henshel said that these numbers are not surprising given Fish and Wildlife data. Illinois Central Springs Hopkins refers to a storm sampling done between may 15 and 23. Westinghouse mobilized before to get storm data. once they got the quality assurance plan passed they tried to get storm data. On may 8th they went there to sample but there was no storm. They took some samples and they got 1400 at Illinois Central and 1100 (dry weight) from the swallow hole area samples and several other samples were higher than what has been seen before. A few days later there was a storm and the samplers recorded a large amount of data. Including hourly composite PCB data. as well as flow rates that went through that system and the concentrations. At peak flows samples were taken every fifteen minutes. They were surprised that the highest concentrations came at the highest flow rates. They thought that there would be a lower concentration at peek flow rates. It was found that data had truncated after the range of the instrument was exceeded. The Westinghouse Geologist was told by the people he got the equipment from that the instrument would keep taken measures but less accurate. We have well data but we don't know how high it went. Porter said that this is really not encouraging, I am sorry but some things are going to happen like that. Hegeman asked if those wells were the piezometer wells that showed the actual water height at the landfill. Hopkins answered that those were the perimeter monitoring wells. 13 Henshel asked if the total suspended solids peaked at the same time. Hopkins answered that he did not know that, but his understanding was that they did not correlate. There may be other phases, there are people working on it. Henshel commented that if there is pure oil coming out it is not only solids and there is really something we have to be concerned about because kids will be playing down the stream and they will get it on their skin. Hopkins said that the best estimate is that six pounds came through with this storm. Valentin asked if other springs were monitored on the day of the high concentration. Hopkins answered that Slaughter House was and that no PCBs where detected. Valentin asked about the other directions. Hopkins answered that those were the only two springs that were investigated during the storm. He also said that there is a problem at Illinois Central, maybe the chief problem. Valentin asked which well was the one that had the transducer that stopped Hopkins answered that there were all of them, four. Valentin asked if in any springs, the level rose above the level of the bottom of the landfill. Hopkins said no. Hegeman asked what the bottom of the landfill meant if the landfill is in a sinkhole that was used for over thirty years. Hopkins answered that one of the things he had been concerned about was that if there is a situation over time where you can get an estimate of how many times the water rises to the bottom of the landfill, within the bottom the landfill or some distance up, you can get an estimate of a frequency that the landfill bottom has been wetted and dried. The mechanism for spauling is there and if you can make a correlation with storm rainfall frequency with elevation of monitoring wells at the site, perhaps you can determine if the sinkholes at the landfill are relatively stable or not. He also said that in the future such an event would be captured. 14 Patrick added that the vendor offered to replace all the instrumentation that will give higher readings. Hopkins said that this was rather crucial information, and bears out the value of the sampling events, some problems are obvious some not. Before it seemed that if some part of the spring water could be treated it may solve the problem, but it does not look like that anymore. Also that cleaning up contaminated sediments at Illinois Central may not make much difference at this time. Patrick said it was to early to give a statement about the correlation between suspended solids and concentrations, and that four people were working on it, that the university was there doing natural chemistry and to get that data it is going to take time. Hopkins agreed that it would take some time to process the information. Hopkins said that when they recognized what they were seeing, the city and the county informed the neighboring residents that there was a problem. This to prevent the kids from getting into the area near the contaminated area. He also said that kids at the elementary school would be informed. Hopkins explained the Westinghouse map showing the area, the sampling and the planned fencing. Corrections to the Fell Meeting Transcripts Novak offered copies of the minutes and corrections could be made and that the copies should be returned to Sona so that the transcriber could retype it. Additional Comments Mr. Schwitzer asked that given the level of contamination set by Congress, has anyone bothered to see what happened in the vicinity of Neals Landfill. Hopkins answered that at Neals landfill they have treated spring water, however it is not necessarily the same physical situation as Illinois Central. Springs near Meals Landfill would be investigated later. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned by Michael List at 9:55 pm. The next meeting will be held Tuesday, July 25th, 1995 at 7:00 p.m. at the PCB Public Information Center, Suite 322 15 Fountain Square Mall. Free Parking is available in the 4th street parking garage and off-street parking is available in front of Fountain Square Mall. Adapted minutes recorded by Sona Chambers, Bloomington PCB Public Information Center, staffed by Earth Tech.