2003 CPEO Brownfields List Archive

From: Emery Graham <egraham@ci.wilmington.de.us>
Date: 24 Jul 2003 17:42:42 -0000
Reply: cpeo-brownfields
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] Delaware's Environmental Agency Not Sure What EPA Agents Find
 
Yesterday, 7/23/03 I forwarded an article about Delaware's environmental agency, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), coming under investigation by agents from EPA's New York and Philadelphia offices. Today the news is that DNREC is not sure what the EPA agents have found. 
 
The residents of the urban waste site communities in the City of Wilmington, Delaware have begun to take note of what's going on and looking to see how this obvious dispute between the State and Federal agencies will play out. Everyone in the ghetto knows when the "Feds" show up with a warrant at 7am in the morning talking about searching your home, there's little room for negotiation and no room to run; and probably there's something illegal going on.  They're looking to see if the people who tell them that the hazardous wastes in their communities are not enough to worry about and certainly not worth removing, get the same treatment from the Feds about the hazardous wastes in their backyard. 
 
How do these events impact the trust of people who aren't members of the enforcement or technical community; the common citizen?  Does anyone have a clue about what we're witnessing here in the State of Delaware? Who will administer the VCP agreement and public hearings on this Brownfields project?
 
DNREC unsure of EPA find
Information about containers taken from state site may be wrong 
By PATRICK JACKSON
Dover Bureau reporter
07/24/2003 
Delaware officials said Wednesday they now are not sure how many buried containers federal environmental investigators have discovered at a state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control complex in Lewes, or what is in the containers. 
DNREC Secretary John Hughes said Tuesday that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigators searching a DNREC-owned site on Pilottown Road had unearthed 17 five-gallon containers of a toxic wood preservative called pentachlorophenol. Sale of the chemical for general use was banned by the EPA in 1987. 
But Hughes said Wednesday that the information probably is wrong. Hughes said EPA officials denied that report to him Wednesday and will not say what they have found or how much. 
"We may have been given false information and then passed it on to the public," Hughes said. "I find that very upsetting." 
Patrick Boyle, a spokesman for the EPA's regional office in Philadelphia, said Wednesday the agency would not comment until the investigation is completed. He said Tuesday the agency was looking into a report of pollution and taking samples for analysis in EPA labs. 
EPA investigators were back Wednesday at the site of DNREC's Division of Soil and Water Conservation headquarters, a 9.7-acre site that was used for a Doxsee Food Corp. clam-processing plant until it closed in 1986. DNREC operations there resumed in part Wednesday. 
Hughes said his Tuesday statements were based on information from Robert Henry, a DNREC official in Lewes who was relaying information he had received from an EPA official at the site. Hughes could not identify the EPA official Wednesday, but said he released the information because he thought it was accurate and did so after consulting Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's chief of staff, Mark Brainard, and her chief spokesman, Greg Patterson. 
Brainard and Patterson said they supported releasing the information. 
"He got this information, which was unofficial, but which he believed was good," Brainard said. "Our policy is to err on the side of letting the press and the public know what is going on." 
Hughes said it appears as if the EPA has found fewer containers. 
He said Henry, head of DNREC's shoreline and waterway management section, reported that he had seen five or six containers excavated. But Hughes said Henry could not tell him what the containers held or their condition. 
"My top cop on the scene has visually confirmed that they found five or six containers," Hughes said. "Right now, we're not sure what is in those containers. It could be pesticide, wood preservative or Evian water. But we are going to conduct our own investigation in cooperation with the EPA to get to the bottom of this." 
Hughes said he also may have been wrong about the containers' contents. 
When he was told the containers held wood preservative, he assumed that meant pentachlorophenol, a preservative the state had used in past years, Hughes said. In January 2000, the agency paid $1,760 to Pennsylvania-based Philips Services Corp., a division of Republic Environmental Systems, to haul 24 five-gallon containers to Canada for disposal. Some contained pentachlorophenol, Hughes said. 
Sen. Gary Simpson, R-Milford, praised Hughes for candor. 
"I think he did the right thing in sharing what he thought was right at the time," said Simpson, whose district includes the Lewes site. 
Patterson said Minner wants answers about what happened. Minner was not available Wednesday. 
"We want DNREC to pursue this as aggressively as they would pursue the investigation of any industrial polluter," Patterson said. 
DNREC bought the property for $500,000 in 1995. It now is used as a base for the division's beach preservation and dredging operations. It has several warehouses and a small office building. Twenty-one DNREC employees are based there. 
Hughes said he still thinks the suspect containers were buried on the site after the agency took it over, but he has no knowledge that DNREC buried materials. His supervisors denied ordering that anything be buried there, said Hughes, who headed the division until he was appointed state environmental secretary last fall. 
"It absolutely puzzles me," Hughes said. "We're the environmental agency and we're willing to pay to do things the right way because the cost of cleaning up a site is a much more lavish and considerably more expensive process than disposing of something." 
The EPA banned retail sale of pentachlorophenol in 1987, but the chemical still is used by the lumber industry to treat wood used for items such as telephone poles, railroad ties and crossing gates. EPA Spokesman David Deegan said pentachlorophenol-treated wood is not available for sale to consumers. 
The chemical can cause nerve damage as well as harm the kidneys and liver. It also is a suspected carcinogen. 
Deegan said the chemical's industrial applications are under review. In 2002, an environmental group, Beyond Pesticides, and the Communications Workers of America sued the EPA in U.S. District Court seeking an order banning all use of the chemical because of the health risks it poses. 
Debbie Heaton, conservation director of the Delaware chapter of the Sierra Club, called on state and federal officials to continue their investigation and to make its findings public. 
"DNREC is the environmental agency in this state," she said. "They should be setting an example for the community by holding themselves to a higher standard and we need to know and understand what happened in Lewes." 
Reach Patrick Jackson at 678-4274 or pjackson@delawareonline.com. <mailto:pjackson@delawareonline.com>  
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Prev by Date: [CPEO-BIF] State of Delaware Environmental Agency Caught In Violation of EPA Re
Next by Date: Re: [CPEO-BIF] State of Delaware Environmental Agency Caught In Violation of EP
  Prev by Thread: [CPEO-BIF] State of Delaware Environmental Agency Caught In Violation of EPA Re
Next by Thread: Re: [CPEO-BIF] State of Delaware Environmental Agency Caught In Violation of EP

CPEO Home
CPEO Lists
Author Index
Date Index
Thread Index