CALL (812) 333-8888 FOR MORE INFORMATION OR E-MAIL info@copa.org
| |||||||||||||||
CALL (812) 333-8888 FOR MORE INFORMATION OR E-MAIL info@copa.org | |||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||
Library: Letters: Public | |||||||||||||||
Dog Urine and PCBs
I recently got a dog, Eddie. Imagine that Eddie and I visit you in your home, and Eddie makes a big puddle on the carpet in the middle of your livingroom. Even if your carpet wasn't brand new, and wasn't perfectly clean, you can be sure that, as an ethical person, I'd do everything possible to clean up his mess to your total satisfaction, as soon as humanly possible. I would be appalled and apologetic, and try my best to fully compensate you for all damages incurred. You would end up with a cleaner carpet than before we visited as the result of my attempt to assuage my conscience, and to stay in your good graces. But now, instead, let's suppose that Eddie makes a puddle on your carpet, and after a very long time, I decide that the best solution is to clean up only the areas of my choosing, and I offer you a nice rug to cover the rest. And imagine that it's not dog urine, but a ubstance that causes lower IQ scores in infants exposed to it, and compromises immune systems.. Imagine that it's not your livingroom carpet, but your back yard. You can stop imagining now. Welcome to the real world! Although PCBs are much more of a health hazard than dog urine, the solution CBS (the new name for Westinghouse) has proposed to clean up Lemon Lane Landfill and Neal's Landfill is to sample for "hot spots". They will excavate the contamination they find, then cover up the rest with a cap.. They'll build water treatment plants to capture the PCBs that the "rug" fails to contain, but they admit that their water treatment plants will fail during major storm events - during the peak flow of PCBs into the streams. This is a sorry excuse for a cleanup plan, and it's scheduled to start soon. The sample spacing they will use is larger than the possible size of hot spots. Widely spaced sampling to locate contamination makes no sense, and is statistically indefensible. They will fail to locate (and fail to remove) known contamination, which was found during sampling a few years ago. Furthermore, their sampling avoids areas known to have been the locus of PCB dumping. They acknowledge that they will miss some hot spots, where contamination far exceeds EPA's limit of "safe". It's likely that they will miss thousands of tons of contaminated soil. Both Lemon Lane and Neal's Landfill are on karst - complex folds of limestone. This means not only that the PCBs have flowed into winding, unmapped conduits and chambers, but also that the channels will change through time. How long will it take for the remainder of the PCBs to drain, and how long will they continue to flow through the channels they are using now? When the geology changes, the water treatments facilities could be rendered useless, as the PCBs could exit via a different route. I have met many of the CBS staff involved in the cleanup, and while they are all very nice, polite, sweet-talking people, what they are doing to this community is unconscionable. How can they sleep at night? They have convinced themselves that their shoddy, incomplete cleanup plans will protect the health and safety of this community. If we let them get away with this, then I guess it's too late to protect our IQ scores. CBS officials: do the right thing. Clean it all up, just as you promised to do when you signed the Consent Decree. All of it! Not half, not some, not what's economically feasible. You can afford to do the right thing! Stop lying to yourselves and to our community. Your cleanup plans are not adequate. And why isn't the Environmental Protection Agency living up to its name? Why are our state, county and city representatives in these negotiations letting CBS get away with this? Why are Judges Foster and Dillin more concerned with getting the cleanup done quickly, than with getting it done in a way that protects our health? If the cleanup proceeds in its current direction, Monroe County will be dealing with PCBs for decades, and maybe centuries. You can invite Eddie and me to your house, but beware of inviting CBS. You and your children might have to pay dearly for it for a very long time. Dawn Hewitt, who serves on the EPA-sponsored Citizen's Information Committee to address PCB cleanup, the Mayor's PCB cleanup advisory committee, works for University Information Technology Services at Indiana University, and is a farmer's market farmer, submitted the above letter to the Bloomington Herald Times [as well as sending a copy via e-mail to COPA]. The Herald Times printed her letter in a "Guest Column" on May 28, 1998 and retitled it "PCB cleanup plan falls far short of adequate for the community." |
|||||||||||||||
|
The Cast | The Tragedy
| The
Comedy | The
Ending | News
| Library
| Seating
Plan | Top
|
Home |
CALL (812) 333-8888 FOR MORE INFORMATION OR E-MAIL info@copa.org | |||||||||||||||
The Coaltion Opposed to PCB
Ash in Monroe County, Inc. is a nonprofit organization. | |||||||||||||||