Fernandez threatening
to sue over PCB cleanup
Officials to meet Tuesday in
Chicago to try for resolution
by Jennifer Jill Fowler
July 12, 1997
reprinted with permission of the Sunday Herald-Times, Inc.
At the start of Phase 1 of PCB cleanup at the old Winston-Thomas sewage
plant just a few weeks away, government and Westinghouse officials still
cannot come to agreement on cleanup procedures for the rest of the contaminated
area.
City, county, state, federal and Westinghouse representatives will meet
Tuesday in Chicago to discuss the issues holding up plans for the rest of
the site.
And if no resolution is met, Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez says,the
city will take the matter to federal court.
In fact, he'll be asking that $100,000 be set aside in the 1998 city
budget during budget negotiations later this summer just in case it comes
to that.
"Nobody wants to litigate," he said."I don't want to litigate.
But I want closure and I'm not willing to accept constant delays."
The delays have come from disagreement between the parties of the 1985 agreement
- Bloomington, Monroe County, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Indiana
Department of Environmental Management, and Westinghouse officials - on
how clean the area needs to be for health and safety factors and how to
acheive that level.
Westinghouse officials say they are surprised by the mayor's comments
and feel things have been progressing smoothly concerning the site.
"Part of the process is working together to come to a consensus,"
said Vaughn Gilbert of Westinghouse. "We have a meeting Tuesday and
we will continue in that spirit. We think we're making good progress as
evidenced by the fact that we're getting started at Winston-Thomas this
August."
Fernandez said Phase I is not the problem. The problem is Westinghouse's
proposal for cleanup of side of Clear Creek, which is adjacent to the site
but not included in 1985 consent decree.
Westinghouse Electric Corp. used PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls,
at its Bloomington capacitor factory from 1959 to 1977, leading to pollution
of area dumps and the Winston-Thomas sewage plant.
The company agreed in 1985 to clean up the waste sites by incinerating
the carcinogens, but the plan was rejected and alternatives have since been
sought.
The agreement recently was amended to add a plan to clean up Winston-Thomas
in two phases.
Phase 1 includes cleaning up digester tanks, sludge drying beds and piping
at the Winston-Thomas facility. It's expected to be completed by late fall.
Phase 2 is a larger project involving a 17-acre lagoon with PCB contamination
of up to 4,400 parts per million and a storage building.
Fernandez said Westinghouse has submitted a proposal they know is unacceptable
and is "flatly just not going to be considered."
Westinghouse's plan for Phase 2 includes cleaning the PCBs out of the
lagoon down to an average of 15 ppm with no more than SO ppm within any
one 100 by 100 foot sample with 74 total samples taken.
The federal government has proposed an average of 15 ppm with amaximum
of 25 ppm within a 20 by 20 foot sample, which would mean taking more than
1,800 samples.
City officials support the number of samples suggested by federal officials
but do not support the system of averaging.
They would rather Westinghouse clean the entire site down to a maximum
contamination level of l5 ppm.
Fernandez said the consent decree parties are at a "major impasse
on the issue."
The parties also are trying to negotiate a plan for cleanup of the west
side of Clear Creek, which is across from the site of the old sewage plant.
City utility workers unknowingly contaminated the area years ago by dragging
some of the sludge from the Winston-Thomas site to the west side of the
creek to dry.
Earlier this year the EPA issued an order for the remediation of the
west side of Clear Creek to 25 ppm.
Fernandez said the city is very concerned about this standard of cleanup
because the area is part of a wetland and is relatively accessible.
City officials have fenced the area to keep people out but believe nothing
less than a cleanup down to 15 ppm with an 18-inch covering of clean soil
is sufficient.
Gilbert said the plan for the west side of the creek is based on input
from several government representatives, including Bloomington officials.
"We want to emphasize that the plan in question is not simply a Westinghouse
plan,"; he said. "It is a plan that was developed in cooperation
with and endorsement by representatives of the city, EPA and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Commission." Officials earlier this year agreed to hire
a facilitator, Nancy Newkirk, to help move negotiations. Though the facilitator
has helped identify issues, she has no authority to make the parties come
to a consensus on those issues.
"On a number of issues that process has worked quite well,"
Fernandez said. "We're hoping that process works on Tuesday but there's
no guarantee it will." |
