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July 3, 2002 THIS WEEK:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For International Brownfields news and resources, visit Brownfields.com International Partners: BrownfieldSites covering the UK and Europe, and aboutREMEDIATION in Canada. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NY Times: Bush to Slash Superfund WASHINGTON, D.C. - The New York Times reported Monday that the Bush Administration plans to cut cleanup funding completely at 33 Superfund sites, and will reduce funding at another 15 sites. The inspector general of the U.S. EPA has given a report to Congress on which toxic waste sites will see their funding cut due to a lack of money in the Superfund program. That means hundreds of Superfund cleanups could be left incomplete, unless other federal funds are used to pay for the cleanup. Critics say using taxpayer money to pay for industrial pollution undermines the 'polluter pays' principles on which the Superfund program was founded. "The Administration should be demanding that the polluters who made these messes pay for cleanup, but instead they're slowing down or stopping cleanups," said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. "The Bush administration is telling communities that have waited for years to get rid of toxic chemicals in their water and soil that they'll just have to wait some more." The original 'polluter pays' funding mechanism that Congress enacted to pay for the Superfund program expired in 1995. The money accumulated in the Superfund Trust Fund has diminished greatly since then - from $3.8 billion in 1996 to a projected $28 million in 2003. As a result, individual taxpayers have been picking up more of the costs of the program. In 1995 taxpayers paid about 18 percent of program costs; in 2003 they will pay 54 percent of the costs. More than 1,200 toxic sites that have not yet been cleaned up remain on the EPA's National Priority List of Superfund sites. According to a study Congress commissioned from Resources for the Future, an estimated 23 to 49 new toxic sites could be added to the list each year. The pace of completed cleanups has also slowed dramatically in recent years. The EPA completed construction on 47 sites in 2001, less than the 75 it projected and far less than the 87 achieved in 2000. The 'polluter pays' mechanism has been supported by every President since its inception, including former President George H.W. Bush. While the current Bush administration has indicated that it will not reinstate the Superfund taxes on industry, bills introduced in the House (H.R. 4060) and Senate (S. 2596) would reinstate the polluter pays program. EPA Announces $3.8 Million for USTfields
in 26 States WASHINGTON, D.C. - EPA Deputy Administrator Linda Fisher announced 40 pilots totaling $3.8 million in grants to 26 states and three tribes to clean up contamination from leaking underground storage tanks. At an event in Philadelphia on July 1, Fisher said, "One of our biggest opportunities for cleanup and redevelopment is thousands of old, abandoned gas stations that are found in communities across the country. While our Brownfields program has been extremely successful, it has been unable to address abandoned petroleum tanks due to statutory restrictions under the Superfund law. These new pilots are building on the successful Brownfields program by bridging the gap." Monday's announcement of 40 USTfields pilots locations, combined with EPA's November 2000 announcement of 10 USTfields pilots, brings to 50 the total of USTfields pilots locations nationwide. Each of the pilots will receive up to $100,000 for assessing and cleaning up petroleum contamination from underground storage tanks. Of the estimated 450,000 Brownfields sites in the United States, about half of these properties are thought to be impacted by underground storage tanks or by some type of petroleum contamination. For more information and a list of the grant recipients, visit the EPA's USTfields web site. Funding Green Buildings Workshops: The popular workshop series "Funding Green Buildings: Sources and Strategies" is dedicated to supporting green building design and construction by providing quality fundraising and grantwriting resources and services for energy-efficient showcase/demonstration projects. This month, there will be two workshops on the West Coast. Please visit the "Funding Green Buildings" workshop web site for registration information and the workshop agenda. The registration fee is $245 per person, which includes lunch and a copy of the workshop manual "Energywi$e Construction Funding Directory for Green Buildings - 2002 Edition." For more details contact Jan McAdams, phone (702) 456-5827, email janmcadams@aol.com, or visit the web site: http://www.fundinggreenbuildings.com. Slovak Officials Ignore Hazardous
Pollution BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (ENS) - Under a new waste law adopted last year by the Slovak Parliament, producers of waste are responsible for its final disposal. But today illegal dumps are still situated just anywhere, and they are polluting the soil in the Slovak capital Bratislava. In addition, Bratislava is facing the environmental consequences of longstanding contamination with petroleum products. "Before 1992 there was no law concerning rubbish dumps," said Danka Thalmeinerova, head of the environmental policy program AINOVA and a consultant to the Slovak Ministry of Environment. "Illegal dumps were around the city and in the city, especially in the Dubravka and Ruzinov districts," she said. "Anyone, including the representatives of factories, could dump waste substances without punishment. When the new law was adopted, it irritated industry and government. Now industries must pay a penalty, if they are caught just at the moment of spilling waste." "I don't remember a case in which this has happened," she said. Until 2001, there were 129 legal landfills in Slovakia, but only 40 of them met the technical requirements. Municipalities are responsible for remediation of local illegal dumps. "So, usually municipal officers will hire the truck once a year to clear a place," Thalmeinerova said. Tremendous efforts and financial support are necessary to solve this problem. Because soil contamination influences underground water, which can travel for long distances, it can contaminate water in wells, reservoirs and tanks far from the original source of pollution. Contaminated water is especially dangerous when it combines with fertilizers which Slovak farmers have overused for many years. "Saved fertilizers damaged soil and ground water sources," Thalmeinerova says. "Now the Slovak government is preparing a guideline for farmers about good agricultural practice so that farmers will not overuse fertilizers again." Large areas of land in the Ruzinov district of Bratislava are contaminated with oil, gas and carcinogenic materials according to a recent study by the firm Geohyco. Geohyco did eight test drillings at various sites at depths from two to seven meters (6.5 to 23 feet). The survey found that the land contains slowly leaking pollutants such as methane, pentane, hexane, heptane and octane that officials fear could collect in explosive quantities. But this contamination was not on record at the Geofond Institute, a state agency which is supposed to register all the results of test drillings. The original contamination was caused 56 years ago when the U.S. Air Force bombed the former Apollo oil refinery on the banks of the Danube River at the end of World War II. The situation became the worse at that time because of leaks from the former Chemikachemical factory. Many people live and shop in the same areas where researchers have found dangerous pollution, but the majority of them know nothing of the dangers. Some physicians, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that oil contamination can cause genetic changes in human organisms. It takes a long time, they said, but mutations will create "terrible consequences" for coming generations. "Level of gases in the earth and their leaking into the atmosphere are major problems, because these gases are explosive," Martin Murin, the head of the Bratislava based Ecotoxology Centre, told the daily newspaper "Hospodarske Noviny." But not one state environmental laboratory is researching the extent to which the pollution in Bratislava has influenced public health. Thalmeinerova said, "We have no organization occupied with the investigation of sickness rates and the influence environmental pollution." The Slovak Republic is a candidate for accession to the European Union, with a responsiblity to meet current EU environmental laws and standards. In a June 20 note, the outgoing Spanish Presidency said that 10 countries, including Slovakia, could be ready to conclude negotiations by the end of this year. The European Commission will assess each country’s progress towards meeting all accession criteria in its 2002 Regular Reports. On the basis of these recommendations, the next European Council in Brussels will decide which countries will be ready to conclude negotiations by the end of 2002. Progress towards full membership in the European Union depends upon "good preparation on the ground by each candidate country that guarantees the fulfilment of all conditions for accession," the Spanish Presidency said. The Accession Treaty is expected to be signed in March 2003, making possible its entry into force by January 2004. The goal is that in 2004 all 10 candidate countries would participate as full members in European Parliament elections. Toxic Pharmaceutical Site Becomes
a New Public Park An event celebrating the completion of the cleanup and the future opening of the walking trails and ballfields on the site of the former Whitmoyer Laboratories marked an important milestone in returning this once highly toxic waste site to beneficial reuse. The site is being turned into a park, baseball and soccer fields, and a scenic walking trail surrounded by over 4,000 newly-planted trees, shrubs and plants. Approximately 1,500 people live within a one-mile radius of the site. A grade school stands half a mile away. Construction completion means that all physical construction has been completed and no human health or environmental threats remain. This is the 70th Superfund site cleaned up in Pennsylvania - nearly two-thirds of all the Superfund sites in the state. From 1934 to 1964, Whitmoyer Labs manufactured veterinary pharmaceuticals at the site; arsenic compounds were produced and stored as part of this manufacturing process. From 1964 to 1982, the property changed ownership several times and was ultimately abandoned in 1987, with 17 deteriorating buildings left on the property. Former waste disposal practices were found to contaminate on- and off-site groundwater, surface water and soils with high levels of arsenic and aniline, posing health threats to nearby residents from drinking contaminated groundwater. In 1987, EPA conducted an emergency action at the site by providing bottled water to 20 homes with contaminated drinking water and shortly after, connected local residents to the public water system. The site was added to EPA's National Priorities List of the nation's most hazardous waste sites that same year. Since then, EPA has worked with the potentially responsible parties to: demolish the 17 abandoned buildings; remove over 500 tons of hazardous materials from those buildings, and decontaminate and recycle over 785 tons of metal debris. The original cleanup remedy called for onsite incineration of wastes. Taking into consideration public feedback, EPA and Whitmoyer Laboratories Private Study group changed the remedy to off-site treatment and disposal of contaminated wastes in 1994. More than 50,000 tons of arsenic-contaminated waste and soils were removed and disposed of off-site, removing a significant contributor to the site's groundwater contamination problem. Remaining soils that were found to be only lightly contaminated were capped with a two-foot layer of clean soil. An innovative water treatment system that uses waste product from the steel industry to clean contaminated water was built in 1998, and continues to process over 150,000 gallons of water from the site each day. This system also ensures contaminated water does not affect the nearby Tulpehocken Creek. Several modifications to the original cleanup plans throughout the entire process resulted in a savings of approximately $50 million in cleanup costs. EPA has most recently worked with the potentially responsible parties, state and local representatives to develop recreational reuse plans for the site. Not only are the baseball fields, soccer fields, a walking trail and green space close to completion, but the historic Union Canal that runs through the property has also been preserved throughout the cleanup. Although all the immediate and long-term environmental and human health threats have been removed from the site, EPA will continue to monitor its progress. A five-year review will take place to ensure that the cleanup remedy continues to be protective. |