[CPEO-BIF] BoRit Asbestos Piles, Ambler, Pennsylvania

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The BoRit Asbestos Piles, Ambler, Pennsylvania
Lenny Siegel
February, 2007

[For a formatted 2 MB, 5-page PDF version of this report, go to
http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/BoRitAsbestos.pdf. -LS]

At CPEO's "Brownfields 101" workshops, I normally explain my 
understanding of the benefits of Brownfields redevelopment. At blighted 
properties where there is no viable-that is, with money-polluter 
responsible for cleanup, a developer can conduct cleanup or other risk 
management activities as part of construction for reuse. Resources to 
protect public health, in this case, come from the savings associated 
with "moving dirt" for other purposes as well as the value added by 
redevelopment. It's a good way to make sites safe, as long as they are 
not too contaminated, too complex, or too large.

On January 28, 2007, I visited a site in Ambler, Pennsylvania, where 
officials face that choice. Should the six acres of the BoRit Asbestos 
Pile now owned by a developer be addressed as a Brownfield or as a 
hazardous substance cleanup?

Ambler is less than 15 miles north and upstream of downtown 
Philadelphia. My hosts were Sharon and Dan McCormick, who live just a 
couple of blocks from the contaminated site.

The 38-acre BoRit site consists of three parcels along the eastern bank 
of Wissahickon Creek, less than a mile from the Ambler Asbestos Piles 
sites, which was remediated by U.S. EPA as a National Priorities List 
(Superfund) site in 1993. The developer-owned parcel covers six acres 
just across a small creek, Tannery Run, from three commercial buildings: 
Sons of Italy, an auto repair shop, and McDonalds. Just to the northwest 
is a reservoir currently owned by the Wissahickon Watershed Authority. 
The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association (WVWA) hopes to acquire the 
reservoir and improve it as a waterfowl preserve. To the northwest of 
the reservoir is the former Wissahickon Whitpain Park, owned by the 
township of Whitpain. This triangular, park was closed more than twenty 
years ago because of asbestos releases.

Ambler itself grew up as a company town for the Keasby and Mattison 
Company, one of the nation's leading manufacturers of asbestos products 
such as electrical insulation, brake linings, piping, roofing shingles, 
and cement siding, K&M operated in Ambler from 1897 to 1962. Two other 
firms, Certainteed Corporation and Nicolet Industries, acquired K&M's 
property, producing asbestos products such as pipe and auto parts until 
1974 and 1987 respectively. K&M apparently disposed of defective 
products and manufacturing wastes at the site from the 1930s through the 
early 1960s, and its successors may have continued the practice.

While the piles on Locust Street and K & M main plant were placed on the 
NPL and capped after extensive study, the BoRit piles did not qualify 
for NPL listing "due to a lack of an observed release to the surface 
water or groundwater. The site also had a vegetative cover which would 
reduce a release of asbestos via the air pathway." Instead, the 
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) managed the 
site under Clean Air regulations, requiring a cap or soil or soil and 
vegetation, fencing, and signage. PADEP issues a regular series of 
Notices of Violations as early as 1984 (to Nicolet) and as late as 2002 
(to Bo-Rit Corporation, the owner at the time). Given those violations, 
it's hard to understand why the property was never listed. (Some of the 
violations may have applied only to portions of the property.)

In 2001, Gilmore and Associates conducted an Environmental Site 
Assessment of the southerly six acres for the Montgomery County 
Redevelopment Authority. The site Assessment appears to be the source of 
much of the available detail about the site. Gilmore reached two 
significant findings:

First, it concluded that under current use-fenced-off open space-the 
site remedy was suitable and the property was in regulatory compliance. 
This latter part of this conclusion is somewhat disturbing, given that 
PADEP noted visible violations just four months later.

Second, Gilmore recommended that the site be considered for 
non-residential use, to allow use of a less protective cleanup standard.

In 2003, a developer now known as Kane Core acquired the southerly six 
acres at a Sheriff's sale. In late 2003, Kane Core filed an Asbestos 
Abatement form with PADEP, but the agency made it clear that it would 
have to submit a detailed plan for approval.

Kane Core proposed to construct a 17-story condominium structure on the 
property, prompting widespread concern from neighbors in low-rise 
Ambler. The proposal also triggered renewed interest in the site's 
hazardous conditions. At some point, Kane Core switched to proposing, 
informally, commercial development.

In the wake of growing community interest, PADEP agreed to conduct 
"baseline sampling" for the entire site. However, it turned out not to 
have enough money, so U.S. EPA stepped in, establishing an Emergency 
Response under CERCLA, the Superfund Law. EPA has contracted for a 
series of air, soil, sediment and water sampling events on the property, 
and it is evaluating alternatives for streambank stabilization as well 
as other actions to control environmental releases.


Meanwhile, in late 2003 Kane Core signed a Prospective Purchaser 
Agreement with PADEP, under the state's Act 2 brownfields program, which 
would absolve it of certain liability in redeveloping the six-acre 
parcel, but U.S. EPA is still evaluating the potential status of Kane 
Core as a Bona Fide Prospective Purchaser under the 2002 federal 
Brownfields Law. The regulatory agencies have not ruled out development 
of the property, but Kane Core has not yet submitted either a Notice of 
Intent to Remediate to PADEP or a commercial development proposal to the 
town.

The Kane Core property is heavily vegetated, but chysotile asbestos 
products such as broken roof tiles are visible from beyond the fenceline 
and Wissahickon Creek. The Asbestos Pile rises as much as 30 feet above 
the ground and half as far below. The volume is about 150,000 cubic 
yards. Wastes deposited there include a slurry of spent magnesium and 
calcium carbonate as well as unusable products such as defective shingles.

The adjacent 15-acre reservoir is formed by a berm of asbestos shingles, 
millboard, and soil. It is likely that the reservoir bottom contains 
asbestos product waste. Remediation is necessary for it to serve as a 
viable conservation area.

The triangular former park area is roughly 17 acres. It rises a few feet 
above grade. It received out-of-spec asbestos products as well as other 
solid wastes. Though the property is vegetated, asbestos waste is 
visible at numerous locations.

EPA's Environmental Response Team has begun a series of sampling events 
at the BoRit site that will continue for at least another year, 
apparently taking place in each season of the year. Thus far, it has 
concluded, "Based on October and November 2006 air sampling results, 
residents in the vicinity of the Site are not being exposed to asbestos 
fibers from the Site at levels that pose an unacceptable or significant 
health risk." They will decide on next steps once sampling results are 
in. The team also has found no increases in asbestos-related disease. It 
does note, however, that some asbestos-related diseases have a long 
(30-year) latency period.

Local activists are skeptical of EPA's assurances, but that's not the 
point. The entire site needs to be remediated. Even if hazardous levels 
of asbestos are not being released into the environment today, it is 
inevitable, without remedial action, that releases will take place in 
the future. Further, the former park-a vital need in the predominantly 
African-American neighborhood it serves-must be remediated to be put 
back into use.

Based upon the deliberations that led to capping as the primary remedy 
at the nearby NPL site, activists accept capping as the principal 
remedial approach at all three BoRit parcels. That is, they accept the 
argument that any soil disturbance is likely to put people at risk.

Therefore, they oppose treating the Kane Core parcel as a brownfield. 
Using redevelopment as the mechanism to conduct cleanup would fail on 
two counts. First, redevelopment would unacceptably require soil 
disturbance. Second, it would not address the entire problem-all three 
connected parcels.

In 2003, Shaw Environmental submitted to PADEP a Hazard Ranking System 
scoresheet, using EPA software re-rating theBoRit site. The combined 
score of 83 greatly exceeded the 28.5 screening threshold for possible 
NPL inclusion. The conclusion is clear: this is a Superfund caliber 
site. To protect public health and the environment, it should be 
regulated as an NPL site and, in the absence of the identification if a 
responsible party capable of contributing significant funding, money 
from the depleted Superfund should be allocated for this site. Because 
the effort will probably involve the capping of less than 30 acres, full 
remediation is likely to be under $50 million, affordable if the fund 
were not already bankrupt.

In the past, EPA officials told local activists that adding the BoRit 
Asbestos Piles to the National Priorities List would not accelerate or 
improve the environmental response. If that's true, it's only because 
the Superfund cupboard is bare. More recently, however, I've learned 
that EPA is considering compiling an official Hazard Ranking package to 
support possible listing.

I agree with Sharon McCormick and her neighbords that redevelopment as 
an approach to cleanup would not be safe. To protect the resident of 
Ambler, originally an asbestos-company town, funds must be found to 
control the contamination as a hazardous waste response, not as a 
Brownfield.


--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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