Meetings: CIC

Citizens Information Committee

Attendees:

Tom Alcamo

Mike Baker

Scott Hanson

Sally Hegeman

Michael List

David Porter

Louis Schwitzer

Larime Wilson

Sally

Tom Alcamo

I'll give you a run down on all the sites. First, at Winston Thomas. Things are progressing. The ________ lagoon is done. I'll be getting reports in the next month or two on sludge drying beds, digesters, the trickling filter in _________ lagoons. In terms of verification sampling made in all the clean up criteria. tertiary lagoon. They are still drudging. It appears they won't get done by Thanksgiving as predicted. They are pretty far behind in terms of the drudging. It looks like they are going to get the drudging done and leave the water on the lagoon. And come back next Spring and finish it up. I haven't gotten anything official from CBS, but when I do I'll send it to you guys. But that's the way it looks. They are still doing a good job out there.

Louis Schwitzer

What percentage would you say you are at this time?

Tom Alcamo

75%. I'll be putting the verification reports in the library as soon as I get them.

At Lemon Lane. The conduit study. Art Lang, who did the initial conduit study back in the spring, is back there today. This week. They have done a number of holes. Eight holes. They drilled. And I did send some information to Mike. You guys are up to speed with the information I have. I should be getting a report in the next two weeks. It should talk in more detail from the results from the initial drilling. Art Lang because there has been mixed results in terms of the conduit study. And the results he saw in the spring. And the drilling that they have performed. Some of it has been successful at some times, and other times it has not. He's redoing the survey. He's drilling additional holes with monitoring points.

At Neal's dump and Bennett's dump; We went out for public comment on the proposed plan. I have some copies here people can take with them. Public comment period runs to the 23rd. There is a public meeting September 10th at the Monroe County Public Library. I'll be talking about the proposal. As you remember from the last meeting. We're excavating Neal's dump to industrial standards, Neal's dump to residential standards. And we're hoping, if things go well, it looks like Neal's dump could happen this year. It's a perfect time because it is dry. In October and November. There is going to be a lot of capacitors most likely in this excavation. So they need 75 days to complete this excavation. It could go shorter or longer. But we don't want to get into the middle of the winter trying to do water treatment. We really need to get Neal's dump done this year. Especially with Winston Thomas being delayed. Bennett's dump should happen sometime next spring.

By the way, I have a EPA sign up sheet if you would like to get on the mailing list. I encourage you to.

At Neal's landfill. We are currently still working on coming up with a proposal for the excavation. We haven't came to an agreement. We have some ideas that we are putting forth to CBS. And we are also working on an interim water treatment approach. We have not submitted that to CBS. We had some engineers out there today. Looking at the site. For an expansion of Neal's landfill treatment plant. Again, as to what we are looking at with an interim approach. We put an interim water treatment system on, then we do a removal. Cap it. And then see what happens. The plant itself is operating fine. It just doesn't catch enough water. We are looking at storage retention basins. Storage requirements, expansion of plant, all of that. Today I met with someone that took me around Neal's landfill to discuss the possible, additional, contaminated areas. And certainly we are going to be going back to CBS and talk about doing some additional sampling. Or just doing some trenching during the actual Neal's landfill remediation. I don't know how we are going to approach that yet. And the same with Bennett's dump. I didn't get a chance to go to Bennett's dump today. That will probably happen some time in the spring. We know the one area outside of the fence is full of capacitors. I put in a proposed plan for that area. It is going to be trenched and sampled. So we are aware of that. And if other areas that come up that we think could be problematic in terms of contamination, we are going to address that also. That's where we are at in terms of Neal's landfill. I would probably say we should have the excavation out for the CIC group probably some time in the next few months. We are still pretty far apart with CBS, but we're working on an approach that we think CBS will accept. And meet our requirements also.

David Porter

Tom, how good are the hydraulic studies on Neal's landfill.

Tom Alcamo

There has been some studies done. If Art Lang's study comes up and we have a good feeling for his results that he is showing with the geophysical study. And comparing that to the drilling. Then we are going to have them go out to Neal's landfill. But I think overall, I think we are pretty lean in terms of what is doing on hydraulically at that facility. There is a huge river running under that facility. We just started monitoring the storm events. The storm events are tremendous. Even though the PCB levels are not has high as Illinois Central Spring. They are problematic. Because of the large volumes of water. And it is a concern of ours. In terms of any type of remediation we do out there with the large quantities of water.

David Porter

Has there been any dye trace studies?

Tom Alcamo

At Neal's landfill there has been. And I know last time we had that dye tracing meeting with CBS. And I will try and see if they would be willing to do that again. For Neal's landfill. Because we did not get into Neal's landfill. There has been some dye tracing studies done at Neal's landfill. And the data is in the library. I will try to get CBS to do that. I don't know if they will or not. I hope they will. I thought it was beneficial for all of us. At Lemon Lane I think we will be doing additional dye tracing studies. I know there was concern with CBS at that meeting regarding Urban Springs. EPA is going to be willing to sample Urban Springs if need be. And any type of long term monitoring.

Louis Schwitzer

I believe Noel ______ in SPEA did do some dry trace studies at Neal's landfill.

Tom Alcamo

Noel was actually at this meeting. With CBS. For the Illinois Central Spring. To talk about Lemon Lane and the dye tracing test. And will probably be there also. You are right, David, we have a long ways to go concerning what is going on with the water there.

David Porter

I've never heard anyone describe what they think is going on with the water there.

Tom Alcamo

I hate to speculate until we get some data. But all I know is that I hear the river running underneath there. We know it's definitely connected to some major conduit. Because when there is large quantities of water the level is all over the place.

David Porter

Is the mass of the landfill getting wet then?

Tom Alcamo

We think definitely the southeast corner of the landfill is getting wet. There is some questions on some other areas. I'm not going to go into the landfill excavation. But the southeast corner is getting wet. When he built the landfill, he buried that stream valley. And he blocked the natural flow of water. And we need to return that.

Water treatment at Illinois Central Spring. Shortly EPA will be doing an official press release regarding the issues associated with Illinois Central Spring. The last meeting we had with the Judge did not go very well. In terms of his patience with any of us. We felt very concerned with the direction the water treatment discussions were going. So as I said, EPA will be making a major press release regarding what we are going to be doing out there. I know there has been a number of rumors out there. I thought I would go over a little bit of the presentation we did for the Judge. And you can see some of the information we presented. It was Judge Foster.

We discussed what the long term goals for what we are looking at for both Neal's and Lemon Lane. Obviously, we need to reduce the PCB releases. And we need to do it with methods that are feasible, cost effective, and practical. The fish advisories. That is extreme concern. And we need to try and get rid of them. Unless we get water treatment, and we get it soon. We're just behind the eight ball already for the twenty years it's been happening. And we also want to reduce the wildlife that comes in contact with Clear Creek. So, that are our goals in terms of water treatment.

David Porter

The PCB levels that you are climbing in Clear Creek. How much risk are people using this purpose trail that the city wants to build next to it going to be out?

Tom Alcamo

I don't know. I would need to talk to John Langley.

We want to do a rapid reduction of PCB levels in fish and wildlife. And we feel that a use of a interim water system at Lemon Lane, with an effective design, is what we feel is best. We feel that if we put in an interim water system at Lemon Lane, specifically Illinois Spring, and CBS decided that their conduit study that they could capture water up by landfill, and build a plant by the landfill, or whatever, that we felt that they could take the components at Illinois Central Spring, that would be built, and re-use them, if they felt that it was more practical to build a plant adjacent to the landfill. That is one of the issues that they are discussing. Because of the conduit study they may be able to capture water coming directly from Lemon Lane. That's problematic for us, in addition to, because there is a half mile difference between Lemon Lane and Illinois Central Spring. So the stuff that is already in the conduits definitely would not be addressed by a plant that would be at Lemon Lane. So that is something we tried to point out to the Judge. That we would not feel comfortable. With a plant adjacent to Lemon Lane. And capturing whatever of PCBs. But still at Illinois Central Spring there was unacceptable releases. In addition, we felt that an interim water treatment at Lemon Lane would allow the completion of not only treat ability study, and ground water studies that are being done at the site. So it gives CBS time to complete those studies. And in the mean time we don't let the releases continue. We view that there is substantial endangerment at Illinois Central Spring with the PCB levels.

David Porter

Does the treatment plant not also validate your clean up strategy?

Tom Alcamo

Yes and No. We view the interim system as a temporary fix that could be expanded for the permanent system if need be. But essentially it's a time frame to allow them to complete their studies. To get the landfill source control, the cap on, or whatever final remedy we are going to do. And evaluate that. In the meantime, we have specific treatment happening out there. So, an interim system is not a permanent. But we proposed, for the court, a thousand gallons a minute. Plus 2 acre feet of storage of water. That's about 650,000 gallons of water. Essentially a greater amount of water is captured and treated. Obviously greater treatment effectiveness. We think, probably we would get in the neighborhood of 100 ppt to 300 ppt with the system we proposed. At a thousand gallons per minute. At the current flow rates, without any diversion of water, we are looking at a 80% PCB mass capture and removal. And I'll have a graph to show you later. We think this would make an immediate benefit. With large PCB reduction in fish and wildlife. And it would begin immediately. We think that we could re-use these components if need be. CBS felt that it was better to build a plant at Lemon Lane, these components could be easily used. And as I said, one of the most important things is flexibility. Because it allows CBS time to complete the studies they need to do. And we truly believe this conduit study, even though the results have been mixed to date, we need to finish and find out what the results are. Because it's very beneficial. If the study comes out positively, it will be very beneficial.

Next chart. This is what CBS proposed. In terms of their interim system. And they want to operate it for something in the neighborhood of 3, more like 5, years. 200-300 gallons a minutes is base flow. At Illinois Central Spring. We just felt that was an inadequate amount of water to capture. It would capture about half of the PCB mass, overall. We took 1996, as a wet year, and used that as a bases for design. We felt that was a representative year and we had accurate data. Illinois Central Spring was monitored continuously during that time. All of this is based upon the 80% and the 50% their system would remove. If the design would work. Based on the 1996 data. But the bigger problem we had, based on CBS's proposal, was more on a ineffective design. It was a gravity fed system. It was a carbon tank. Illinois Central Spring would flow into a carbon tank and that would be it. We felt that based upon experience that you would need some type of a back washing system. We felt that the system would not work. And we still feel that way. The system we proposed was more like a Neal's landfill type system. A building and foundation. CBS wasn't even thinking of putting power into the Illinois Central Spring area. We felt very uncomfortable about this system. And we also felt that to operate that for 5 years is not the right approach.

We didn't feel there would be much PCB reduction in fish and wildlife. And there would definitely not be any future use of their components.

The Judge has indicated to us that it's been for this many years, what's another few years. What does it matter. He seems to talk in metaphors. He said you need to cut out the cancer and let the body stabilize.

I have a drawing of CBS's system. I can pass around.

We do think the interim approach is the correct approach. But I don't feel that 200-300 gallon per minute system is the appropriate system.

David Porter

If you divide 5,000 by 50% or 80%, you are still going to be well over the state levels.

Tom Alcamo

Right. But there is also a point of not being able to measure that level. We've had discussion in terms of what the final MPS discharge criteria are. The state has came out and said 790 ppq. And one of the reasons we are doing a treat ability study is to look at different technologies for that specific purpose. We think that if we can get to 100 ppt in terms of discharge, then we are going to make a significant effort in reducing the fish levels of PCBs.

I will be putting in the library soon a report of alternatives of evaluation. It's not final yet. But it's used as a bases of our looking at different sizes of systems.

So, what did we use for the bases for our evaluation of water treatment? We will be giving this report to CBS and to the Judge. And it will be used in our administrative record to justify any decision that EPA puts forth. But the bases for our evaluation was what's the flow to be treated. Historical hydro logic data. We used 1996 as the year that was best for designing this plan. And it was a yet year. Also, another consideration was surface water flow over spring water flow. In that basin we're looking somewhere in the neighborhood of 7% of the water. Released in Illinois Central Spring is somewhere in the neighborhood of surface water flow. For that basin. Site constraints of Illinois Central Spring. That whole area. Who owns what property. What are we going to have to buy from people if we need to. Things of that nature. And of course, performance criteria. Our goal on this is to try to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 - 300 ppt as a discharge criteria for interim.

We've looked at a number of different technologies. In terms of treatment. Collection settling basin, some type of filtering, sand filters, cartridge filters, etc. This is just a rough flow chart. Technology is easily implementable. Cost effective. And is effective. This is a graph that show you from 1996, flow rates vs. PCB mass caption. So that's where we came up with the 1,000 gallons a minute. It's around 80% of PCB mass removal. You can see 1,500 is about 90. You get greater flow rates the percentage actually gets greater but a much smaller rate. You are looking around 50% base flow. Next chart. The bottom table is the amount of millions of gallons that would be bypassed for any size system. For example, if you had 200. You had 50 million gallons would be bypassed. Based on 1996. Etc.

No matter what system we get out there, there is going to be some time that there is going to be bypass. It's the nature of the beast. I can't collect every drop of water. That's why we think storage of water is so important. And this conduit study is extremely important. And we want it to continue. Because it's critical in diverting water that is contaminated with PCBs.

Technical details. In terms of types of systems. At 1,000 gallons a minute we're looking at a 2 acre foot storage basin. A couple pumps, 40 micron filters. This is all subjective. We think it could be a sand filter. We need to get into a specific design before we come out with an exact system. But this is the approach we looked at. Essentially it's similar equipment with all the systems we looked at.

We looked at the cost. 200, 500, 1,000, 1,500. We're looking somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 million per 1,000 gallon per minute system. You can see, when you look at site preparation. There's not much difference between them. Because you have got to build a foundation. A building.

Louis Schwitzer

Would it not make sense to build a permanent building to start with?

Tom Alcamo

What happens if they are able to divert water. Capture water at the landfill. Store. There is a number of options that could happen. And to build a permanent system. What happens if the excavation at Lemon Lane reduces the PCB discharges? If I have them build a plant now, I could have a huge plant out there with being under utilized. Could I go out and build a plant right now and size it for some huge amounts of water. Yes, I could do that. But we feel going with this interim approach makes sense. Is it a concession in terms of our part, to CBS? Somewhat. Because we want to let them finish their conduit study. We want to see how our source control at Lemon Lane does. So there are a number of major things that are going to happen that are going to effect the final design of the system. In addition, the technology out there to get 790 ppq. I don't know if there is anything out there that can do it. I know I can't measure it. The lowest I can measure in what I'm doing in the treat ability study is about 1 ppt.

Larime Wilson

That's really far from 100 to 300 though. At .1 to 100 to 300.

Michael List

It's actually the same. He just said it different.

Larime Wilson

Run by them again. I thought you said that the state health requirement of .79 ppt.

Tom Alcamo

That is if someone goes and drinks the water. I don't have Dr. Clark here. I'd rather have him here to talk about that.

The discharge is 790 ppq. And we are looking at in the neighborhood of 100 ppt for discharge at this plant.

Larime Wilson

So that's a like a thousand times greater?

Tom Alcamo

Right.

Larime Wilson

So that's a big range. My question is what is in between there. What technology are there....

Tom Alcamo

I don't know. That's why we are doing the treat ability study. I certainly can't measure it. We are still working on the contracting. And getting together the work plan for the treat ability study. But it will be all out for your review.

Louis Schwitzer

Is it being designed so it can be enlarged?

Tom Alcamo

Yes.

Sally Hegeman

On the things you showed us, you only took us up to 1500 gallons per minute. And that took care of approximately 90% of the mass of PCBs. What volume are you estimating for 99% of the PCBs? And the old classic, six 9s. 99.9999% of PCBs.

Tom Alcamo

I don't know the latter. In terms of the 99% removal based on 1996, it's around 3500. But what does that mean? In terms of how much. You build a 1,000 gallon per minute plant. Or do you have a huge storage basin that you put the water in and you pump.

Sally Hegeman

I understand there is a trade off there. So the next question is going back to Lou's question. If 1,000 is 1.5, and 1,500 is 1.85. How much is that 3.5 going to cost?

Tom Alcamo

Much higher. The process equipment is going to get bigger and bigger. I'll get the cost if I need to. I don't know what it is because we felt with the interim approach it was much too big.

Sally Hegeman

What seems to be happening is that the increment and cost sufficiently goes up as the volume goes up.

Tom Alcamo

Yes, but you also get a lot more process equipment. You have more site property because you have a much more bigger building. So there is a major difference between a 1,000 and 3,500 gallons a minute. And we felt, from an interim approach, this makes sense. In terms of its cost effective and practical, but as I keep saying, it's not define system.

Sally Hegeman

Okay. The reason I ask, other than Lou's question, if you are going to do it why not do it the first time. The way things go in this community, and I know you have a different way of approaching things than people have before, but once there is an interim approach in there, what's the likelihood that the final solution is actually going to take place in any sort of near future? So that is what the community has to consider what are the trade offs that we are thinking about when we are looking at your estimates.

Tom Alcamo

This is not the final system. We are not doing this under the consent decree. If EPA, and I am not making any official announcement, does decide to build this we would be doing this as an emergency order. As a substantial endangerment. Therefore, this is not associated with the consent decree. And if EPA does decide to build the plant, we would be going after cost recovering with CBS. This is not the final decision. We are going to make a decision on the final treatment system. It will spell out a phase approach, or an operated unit type approach. And we just feel that getting something out there now, even while these studies are completed, is important. And making some mass reduction. I'm not worried with this being the final system. It could be the final system if they diverted the water, and we found accessible discharge criteria. There's a lot of if's. I can give you a million and one speculations here. I need to get something out there as soon as possible. CBS's 200-300 gallon per minute could be out there this fall. Our system we propose is going to take some time. It would probably be out there a year from now. But I've got to design it and build it.

David Porter

It does seem to be the case that your site preparation costs aren't changing regardless of sites. So wouldn't it make sense to at least scale site prep at 3500 gallons?

Tom Alcamo

No. If CBS wants to pay for that, I would be more than happy. One of the problems we've had, they basically said they will litigate if, and in no uncertain terms would they build this size of system in an interim period. They would litigate before they would do that. They feel it's not appropriate. They feel that they should have the time to complete their studies through source control and see what happens.

David Porter

They have had twenty years of discharging 300 pounds of PCBs a year down the stream. They don't really need any more time. And I go back to what I said. Don't you validate their solutions by seeing a decline at this interim plant? When all your work is done, how are you going to tell if you were successful or you have to go back and re-work it?

Tom Alcamo

What?

David Porter

Lemon Lane. All of your remediation efforts are suppose to produce a substantial drop in the discharges. As a criteria for saying, it was okay for only doing hot spot removal. That's what we were told.

Tom Alcamo

As I said, we think the interim approach is the approach we use at many sites. We feel that building a system that's going to remove 80% of the mass is appropriate. It's not the perfect system. It's not the final system, but it's something out there that is going to make a reduction that's going to give time to finish the studies. Finish the source control. After that there will be a permanent system. Whatever size that will be, I don't know. I can say that discharge criteria will come up. Size of the plant will come up for the permanent system. But this is allowing mass reduction in a way that is cost effective and practical for an interim solution.

David Porter

I grant your point. You still will have 60 pounds per year of PCBs discharging. During the work phase of the Lemon Lane excavation, wouldn't you expect higher levels of PCBs to come out as they churn that material.

Tom Alcamo

This plan hopefully will be up and running by then.

David Porter

Well yes, but it may be bypassing 80% of 1,000 pounds per storm event.

Tom Alcamo

But we may not have those discharge. Lemon Lane excavation, we are not even near in terms of signing that proposal. I haven't even thought about how we are going to deal with the excavation. No matter how much we are going to take off. I go one step at a time. I've got two sites out for public comment. We get to that, it's a concern. Also, at Lemon Lane, it's a concern of the people living next to the site during excavation.

David Porter

Well then how long before excavation at Lemon Lane is completed?

Tom Alcamo

It depends on how much we excavate. I hope it's going to start in the spring. Next year some time.

Mike Baker

You said earlier that you are building this. That you hope to have this operation for excavation started but it's going to take a year to build this.

Tom Alcamo

We are going to have to monitor the water during the excavation. And that is an issue. I'm not denying that a bit. But if we find that there is problems like increase PCB levels at Illinois Central Spring during the excavation, then we are not opposed to forcing CBS into put a treatment system. A temporary, small, like carbon vessels there during excavation. I'm not opposed to that. Everyone is assuming the worse. I just don't know.

Mike Baker

You hope to have this built before excavation starts?

Tom Alcamo

Before it's completed. This is going to get built some time next year.

Mike Baker

So you are shooting for excavation to start roughly spring or summer?

Tom Alcamo

Yes. Somewhere in there. Along with Bennett's dump. Finishing Winston Thomas. Hopefully Neal's dump we can do this fall. So there is a lot going on.

Next one. Just to give you a feel for CBS cost. In terms of their in stream carbon of 300 gallons a minute. $200,000 for 5 years. As I said to the Judge. You get what you pay for. So we didn't feel the system was going to work. It was too small. And too long a time frame for the interim period.

Louis Schwitzer

Do you guys actually have _____ domain power.

Tom Alcamo

I don't know. I guess you are asking if we are like the government to come in and take someone's property. Is that what you are asking?

Louis Schwitzer

Well, I'm real close. Because where I'm coming from is this. We've sat here for twenty years with this whole mess. And we are worried about spending $300,000 of Westinghouse's. And the Judge is sitting there and more concerned about Westinghouse, it seems like we've got the wrong approach to this thing. I see this as a excellent effort on your part. And I think the community should be helping you to get that thing built. Support the 3500 gallons while you are going in. And if it's overkill, too bad. It's been overkill for twenty years the other way. And Westinghouse has had the free use of $135 million.

Tom Alcamo

You mean CBS. Westinghouse does not exist. Westinghouse bought CBS and threw out their name. And sold their industrial system so they are a media company now.

Larime Wilson

Westinghouse Bloomington project still exist.

Louis Schwitzer

Whatever it is. Westinghouse's bottom line has not been impinged to the cost to the incinerator. Which they were going to recover out of this community. I hate to bring up old history, but I wouldn't be worried about what it cost. Because you guys have that authority under the super fund just to say we are going to clean it up and you are going to get the bill. And the judge has the power to say, and you'll write the check CBS. And if you don't want to, then we'll take it from there.

Tom Alcamo

I wish it was that easy. For all the sites. Well over a hundred million.

Louis Schwitzer

Just as a guess. Based on looking at the cost being tied up in those electric motors. And some 12 X 22 foot silos. If I think I understand the construction technique. I would think that to go out that far it would look like you were adding one more pump for each 500 gallons.

Tom Alcamo

It depends. I don't have in terms of the detailed designed. But we are talking about greater amount of carbon vessels. We are also talking about more filtration. In terms of either cartridge filters or sand filters. More pumps. More maintenance. It all adds up every year. In terms of the cost. I can calculate out 3500. But as what we view as an interim approach we feel this is the way to go. As I keep saying, this is not the permanent system.

Louis Schwitzer

Tom, what we are really asking about is the size of the holding lagoon. It would seem to me that's the thing that makes most sense to scale fully right now.

Tom Alcamo

I'm limited the size of Illinois Central Spring to around 2 acre feet. I'm not limited up next to Lemon Lane. Next to Lemon Lane there is a large amount of land that CBS owns. I think 17 acres. There is options we have out there. But for a permanent system we have not explored. We're not there yet. But for an interim, I am limited at Illinois Central Spring.

Louis Schwitzer

Could you summarize the time line for me. You are going to start excavation before the interim water treatment thing is in. And then you have a period of time that you are going to be doing the excavation. And then when do you propose to put in a permanent water treatment plant? I guess what I'm asking is how long do you think before an interim water treatment plant is to be in operation?

Tom Alcamo

Two to three years. You've got the excavation, and the cap on. And you have to monitor after that to see what's going on with the levels in the conduits. What's been going on at Illinois Central Spring. The interim water treatment is not the final system. I have limited budgets to deal with. If EPA does decide to build this plant, then I don't have an open check book. If I book removal, I have a 2 million dollar statutory limit. There is a lot of issues here. And that didn't figure in terms of our initial 1,000 gallon per minute proposal. We thought 80% of PCB mass makes sense. In terms of an interim. To get something out there that is going to work. We are looking at our options. And we will have an announcement shortly.

Sally Hegeman

Is the design of an interim plant very different from the design of a permanent one?

Tom Alcamo

Depending upon what technology we use. The permanent one will be more complicated. But not the whole bunch. There will be a lot of design packages. They will be out for bids. There will be a lot of equipment purchased. And so a permanent system, from my estimate right now, would be a little bit more complicated.

We would be looking at greater capture. Or some storage and more water.

So this is basically what we told the Judge. EPA is paying for these treat ability studies on this technology. And we didn't know if the 79 ppq is going to be the final number. And give CBS time to draw conclusions from their conduit study. We think they need time. It will give a cost effective approach for the final system. Maybe the interim system is going to be used for that. And we would allow bypass of untreated water during the interim system. So we are giving a flexibility to CBS and I'm disappointed that they refuses to build the plant. I think it made sense. And we feel that something needs to be put out there.

I wanted to show you on these charts in terms of what flow rates, storage, and requirements. These are pretty important. In 1996 April and May, there were six storms. And that's acre feet. So you have 69 acre feet. To capture all that water. At a 1,000 gallons a minute. This gives you a feel for the size of water storage.

Next chart. This is a time frame to empty the retention base. During base flow period at Illinois Central Spring.

David Porter

Will passing through the holding lagoon drop the PCB volume?

Tom Alcamo

Yes. There will be some settling in the retention basin. You've got to get that settlement out of there. You look at Neal's landfill water treatment plant. They have never changed the carbon in that. It's mainly being used almost as a filtration. Because they backwash the carbon.

David Porter

So then when you have a bypass event will it go through a set of gates to minimize?

Tom Alcamo

I'm not that far along in terms of where we are at. It's a good idea.

Louis Schwitzer

Does that mean that your settlement lagoon that will have water in it will have to be drudged at some point of PCBs?

Tom Alcamo

Yes. On going maintenance. The retention basin will be lined and it will have to be drudged. It will build up.

Louis Schwitzer

In terms of the filters mentioned, there was a 40 micron size. Are you going to have membrane filters?

Tom Alcamo

There is 40 micron cartridge filters at Neal's. And we just use that as a bases. But that may not be the route. There could be sand filters. We'll leave that to the designers.

Sally Hegeman

Money doesn't seem to be the issue with CBS. After all, 2 million is not a very big amount. So this is clearly a policy issue to do as little as possible? Is that what you are saying?

Tom Alcamo

I am not going to comment on what CBS's approach is. They told us and the Judge that they feel with the removal at Lemon Lane, the capping, the drainage controls, and along with the conduit study, which they need to finish, they feel that spending 2 million dollars is not the best use of money. That this money that they would be sinking into, like a foundation, would be lost. That's my take on this.

Louis Schwitzer

What's size of the plant?

Tom Alcamo

About three times the size of the one at Neal's.

Louis Schwitzer

You keep saying when we decide. When is that processing happening, and who decides?

Tom Alcamo

Next couple of weeks. Within a week or so there will be a press release.

Larime Wilson

What are the factors for whether or not EPA decides to fund this?

Tom Alcamo

We are looking at the whole strategy and our approach for these projects?

Larime Wilson

So the money is available if you chose to?

Tom Alcamo

Yes. It sure is.

I think the budget for the entire year is 17 million a year. That's all. EPA management, as much as you guys think they drop the ball, they have spent a lot of money recently on this project. In terms of the sampling of Neal's landfill, the treatability studies, and all the other sites. So they are committed to get the project done and meet the Judge's deadline. More things have happen in the last eight months than the last eight years. The rumors that EPA doesn't care is just not true. I can tell you right now we are going to have battles over source control at Lemon Lane. Because you want a million cubic yards dug up. I have the data in terms of the EPA policy and what we do at sites. And my job here is not to remove every PCB in Bloomington, but to not let people be exposed to the crap. Administrative records will be all spelled out for you to look at. Lemon Lane will be at the library by the end of the month. I know there has been some issues regarding the RFS. And why hasn't the RFS been done. I've been doing this project management for 11 years, and I have never seen more data on sites compared to any other super fund site. Especially Lemon Lane. There is so much data out there that it is going to be easy to make a decision.

Larime Wilson

Do you have any air data for Clear Creek?

Tom Alcamo

I don't know. I know there is air data back before the caps were put on. And that story that came out in the paper was even before Dan Hopkins time. That was done before the caps were put on.

Larime Wilson

We talked to Dan a lot about getting air monitoring right there where that trailer park is. Right across from where the water drops down, sinks down and goes through that culvert. And then turbulence coming out the other side of the railroad tracks. So, can you do that?

Tom Alcamo

I'm not anticipating it. I only have limited funds. I don't know what that is going to show me. It's going to show me that there is PCBs in Illinois Central Spring. And I already know it. And I need to stop it. I will approach CBS with it.

Larime Wilson

We are using the fish advisory as a clean up standard. What about the air for the people living right there. It has never been measured once.

Tom Alcamo

The v________ of PCBs. I think there has been some recent data that shows that they are more v______ than we thought. But, still it's not like it's TCE or something of that effect.

Larime Wilson

Why don't we have any sampling?

Tom Alcamo

It's something we will consider. It's not a priority.

Larime Wilson

Can we put it on the agenda next month to see about what you considered?

Tom Alcamo

I'll go to management with it. I don't have an open checkbook. I'll ask my management if they want to put a monitoring station out there.

David Porter

It's really _______ of there aren't any PCBs in Illinois Central Spring for fifteen years and then somebody actually looked.

Louis Schwitzer

And they looked at a time that they didn't expect to find any and they found action loads.

Tom Alcamo

As I told you, I don't know why it's been discharging for twenty years either.

David Porter

The assumption that once it discharges that it stays in solution and travels downstream until it is absorbed by an organism.

Tom Alcamo

What solution do I have? I get the PCBs out of the water, then I stop by air release. What happens if I come up PCB numbers near Illinois Central Spring?

Larime Wilson

It might drag you off your 1,000 gallon minute.

Tom Alcamo

We won't be dragging off the 1,000 gallon minute. I guarantee you that.

Larime Wilson

Especially if you're not going to look at it.

Louis Schwitzer

The point is if we have this information that PCBs are escaping by another route, then we might look again at the clean up at Lemon Lane and what we need to do and what the extend of it is. If I know we have turbulent PCB water here, and there is a Mulberry tree here, and there are kids here, then we know that is a direct exposure route. And I've seen kids eating mulberries across from Clear Creek. So it does worry me that this exposure route never was tight.

Tom Alcamo

Actually Jim Cartmell brought up a good point last meeting about PCBs and uptake by plants. Essentially, what the research says it's mainly uptake by the roots and not the leafs. In terms of PCBs. So, you are right. I will look into it.

David Porter

Since CBS corporation is a broadcasting corporation we decided to try and start a boycott of the CBS television network. We are going to ask people not to listen to CBS. And their friends not to listen to CBS. We are creating a web page and a mailing address where people can sign in and say that they are not going to listen to CBS. And then we are going to tell the folks that advertise on CBS that there is no point in giving them the money to run the ads because nobody is listening. And with a little luck, we will hit them at their bottom line. And maybe they will pay attention to Bloomington. And stop behaving the way they have been behaving. It should be up and running by Friday. Anybody with Internet access can type into their browser www.boycott-CBS.com. Or just boycott-CBS. And they should have access to the boycott web page.

Unknown Man

Could I suggest that maybe you could revisit the wording on that. Because last time I looked at it I recall it said something like "the PCBs are destroying the world."

David Porter

It said they are contaminating the world.

Unknown Woman

It's P.O. Box 382 if anyone wants to send contributions. Boycott CBS, PO Box 382, Bloomington, Indiana 47402.

David Porter

The web page has access to a downloading printable page for signing up folks that don't have access to e-mail.

Mike Baker

All you are trying to do is force CBS to be a good corporate citizen in the first place. It's a shame that you would have to force a corporation to behave responsibly in something. Even though you could say they inherited part of this because of the name change. It can effect them a lot more in the pocket book than $300,000 of them taking the initiative. And building a 3500 gallon per minute treatment plant rather than having EPA contemplate whether or not they will use some of their limited funds. Such a minor part of the overall picture.

Louis Schwitzer

You realize a day of advertising in the super bowl would pay for the whole clean up here?

Sally Hegeman

One last question. It's about Clear Creek. Will there have to be a clean up at Clear Creek?

Tom Alcamo

We anticipate that. We don't know in terms of if within the consent decree. Certainly EPA has a number of enforcement tools available to deal with that. CBS position has been that there is not much sediment at the first part of Clear Creek. Once you get to Gore Road there is definitely sediment that is contaminated that we see. They feel it's coming from other sources. I've asked them to identify those sources, and they don't know where they are at.

Michael List

Okay. Next meeting is October 20th.

Tom Alcamo

I suggest everyone check the web page. There will be a lot of stuff coming.