Community Letter to the Editor

In 1984, a Consent Decree was signed by the Westinghouse Corporation, the City of Bloomington, the State of Indiana, Monroe County, and USEPA providing for the cleanup of an estimated 650,000 cubic yards of soil and other material contaminated with PCBs-toxic chemicals used by the Westinghouse Corporation (now CBS) in the manufacture of electrical capacitors in their plant on the west side of Bloomington. All parties agreed that it was necessary to completely excavate the material. It was then to be treated in an incinerator to be built and operated by Westinghouse, at a profit. Years of public protest followed, and in 1994 this remedy was abandoned, the parties agreeing to seek a safer solution. In November of 1997 Federal Judge S. Hugh Dillin issued an order to expedite the process and appointed Magistrate Kennard P. Foster to oversee the cleanup. Under pressure to meet deadlines established by Judge Dillin, the parties are contemplating a "cleanup" that differs so shockingly from the original intent of the Consent Decree parties that we the undersigned feel it is time once more for the community to register its protest in the strongest terms.

The largest contaminated site-one of the worst PCB sites in the United States-is the old city dump known as the Lemon Lane Landfill, (LLL), located on the east side of State Road 37, near its intersection with Vernal Pike. As a temporary measure the site was capped with a sheet of plastic in 1987. It was later discovered that PCBs were flowing out of LLL and emerging in alarming concentrations at Illinois Central Spring (ICS), near the intersection of Adams Street and West 5th. The plan that is emerging for dealing with PCB contamination at LLL is not the total excavation that the community was promised, but rather a very limited removal of what USEPA terms "hotspots", followed by re-capping of the site and continuing treatment of the water emerging at ICS for decades to come. It has been promised that a "re-opener" agreement will provide for further cleanup measures if periodic review shows that the cleanup has been inadequate.

Although it seems clear that the abandonment of the total excavation of contaminated material at LLL is based on the reluctance of Westinghouse/CBS to spend money that will not be returned through incinerator tipping fees, it is now claimed that a "hotspot" excavation (no precise definition of just what constitutes a "hotspot" has yet been provided) is all that is necessary to protect public health and environmental quality; that what is left in LLL is not important as long as what emerges is monitored, captured and treated to remove its toxicity.

We feel this approach is dangerously inadequate for the following reasons:

• The soil sampling at LLL has not been done systematically or thoroughly, nor has the location of samples taken into account historical information about where scrapped capacitors and other toxic materials were dumped. Based on this half-hearted mapping of the site, the "hotspot" excavation seems a mere token effort.
• LLL is located above a geologic system known as "Karst"-unstable limestone riddled with cracks and channels through which water flows. Long term residents of southern Indiana are familiar with the appearance of new surface sinkholes where none existed before. This is graphic evidence of the changing and unpredictable nature of Karst. To suggest that ICS is, or will be, the only route for the escape of toxins from LLL is absurd.
• Bloomington's PCB problem was first discovered over twenty years ago.

If the proposed cleanup proves inadequate and is re-opened, the process could drag on for twenty more, while fish in area streams remain too contaminated for human consumption and our community is exposed to chemicals shown to cause cancer, reproductive disorders, and neurological effects-including learning disabilities.

WE URGE YOU TO CONTACT YOUR LOCAL AND STATE POLITICAL LEADERS, USEPA, MAGISTRATE FOSTER, AND JUDGE DILLIN AND INSIST ON:

• complete excavation of the contaminated material at Lemon Lane Landfill as well as at the other Consent Decree sites to at least the levels that all the parties originally agreed were necessary to protect human health and environmental quality
• a thorough and diligent effort to identify as many paths as possible for PCBs to emerge from the sites, where even if all contaminated soil is removed much dangerous material will remain within the bedrock channels
• permanent monitoring and treatment of all identifiable points of discharge, starting immediately

This guest editorial is submitted by ALL of the citizen members and regular attendees of the EPA Citizens Information Committee (CIC) . Most of these people have been involved with the PCB issue for over 9 years.

Mike Baker	George Hegeman	Michael List
Diane Henshel	Sally Hegeman	Flynn Picardal
Dawn Hewitt	Larime Wilson	David Porter
Jim Cartmell	John Foster	Lou Schwitzer
Mitch Rice