Facilitator may spur cleanup
Parties agree on job description,
cost-sharing formula for new post
by Jennifer Jill Fowler
January 21, 1997
reprinted with permission of the Herald-Times, Inc.
After more than a decade of slow and ineffective negotiations, parties
to a PCB cleanup agreement are hoping to kick-start the effort by contracting
with a facilitator.
The facilitator would have no decision-making responsibility but would
help move discussion along by identifying and helping to resove disputes.
A PCB referee if you will.
"I think all the parties recognize that it's time to move, said
John Langley, the city s PCB project coordinator. "It's the exact details
about that we might dispute. And it's a lot about money. Items that cost
a lot of money tend to be issues we have disputes about.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation used PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls,
at its Bloominton capacitor factory in the 1960s and '70s. The chemicals,
linked with cancer in some studies, made their way to area dumps and a city
sewage plant.
Under a 1985 court-ordered agreement, Westinghouse was to incinerate
PCB-contaminated waste and soil. Public opposition stopped the incinerator
plan, and Westinghouse agreed to seek alternative cleanup methods.
In the past there was no agreed way to resolve these disputes. That slowed
the process considerably. But by adding an independent facilitator whose
main purpose is to make things go smoothly, things should change, Langley
said.
"There's been some concern that, at the technical level, we have
not been very efficient at clearly identifying issues that we need guidance
on," he said. "A case in point would be that we came to a resolution
this fall about sampling in the Lemon Lane Landfill. We started that discussion
in March of 1984."
Geoff Grodner, attorney for the city utilities department said all of
the parties involved - Westinghouse, the United States Environmental Protection
Agency, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the City of
Bloomington and Monroe County - agreed on a job description and cost-sharing
formula for the facilitator.
The budget, including expenses, should not exceed $100,000. But Grodner
said it is likely it will be much less.
"I have a hard time imagining that the cost is going to approach
anywhere near that amount" he said.
The informal cost-sharing agreement for the first year calls for the
county and city each to pay 10 percent while Westinghouse and the EPA each
pay 30 percent and IDEM pays 20 percent.
"We hope to see progress made in this coming year and if there isn't,
we will sure be leery of signing on again," said Norm Anderson, county
commissioner.
Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez, who has resolved to be the last mayor
to have to deal with the PCB issue, hopes the facilitator will keep cleanup
plans on schedule.
"In my opinion the current process doesn't work very well,"
he said. "There's no methodology for resolving conflicts in a timely
manner. Clearly the parties have different interests. We need to have a
process that identifies those issues very early and not drag this process
out."
Fernandez said he is particularly concerned about the delays in the cleanup
of the Winston-Thomas sewage plant.
The schedule calls for cleanup to begin at the Winston-Thomas sewage
plant and the old city dump, Lemon Lane, by late this year, and all five
cleanup sites by 1999.
Grodner said the facilitator should be an independent contractor who
has experience in corporate negotiations.
"From the city's perspective, we do not want and another environmental
expert rendering an opinion," he said. "That's not what we see
as the function of this individual. Because of the strong personalities
of the people involved and their expertise in the various areas, we think
it's necessary that the individual be someone who is a stong personality
also and who can work on a face-to-face basis with not only the principals
but project managers. It certainly would be helpful it they have some knowledge
of environmental issues but that is not, from the city's perspective, a
requirement."
A good example of someone who might be qualified would be a former judge
or federal magistrate, he said.
The parties are planning to meet early next month to possibly decide
who the faciltator should be. |
