RE: [CPEO-MEF] NPL listing timelines

[andersa@spot.Colorado.EDU]

There are cases where the "Explanation of Significant Differences" process
has been kicked in at citizens' initiatives.  In one such case, community
groups here demanded that EPA enter into an "Amendment to the Record of
Decision" at the Lowry Landfill Superfund Site in Colorado, where EPA
changed the ROD from an on-site treatment plan to one in which they would
simply flush the site's contaminated groundwater (after ineffective
treatment of the wastes identified) to the public sewers, whereupon the
sludge would be used as "fertilizer" on Colorado farmland purchased by the
Metro Wastewater Reclamation District (MWRD, the region's sewage works.  I
had been appointed to the MWRD Board of Directors to represent the sewage
plant's workers (OCAW union) and dug up records indicating this change in
plans, without public input, in violation of the ROD.  Further, in my
investigations, aided by CU Environmental Studies students, we learned the
site contained high levels of special nuclear materials, including
plutonium, which had been kept from the public.  Now, EPA simply denies it's
there, and is continuing in its plan to pump mixed radiotoxic waste to the
sewers for the next 30-50 years, using the growing loophole in the Section
503 Rule of the Clean Water Act.  So under citizen pressure, EPA initiated
as "ESD" process.  Over 400 comments unanimously against this mad plan were
submitted to EPA by citizens. EPA received ZERO comments in support of it
(except by certain chief PRP's, who of course, designed the cheaper plan),
yet the EPA is railroading ahead with this plan.  So yes, you can initiate a
process to amend the record of decision, but our experience in this case is
that the EPA will completely ignore public input if a deal has already been
cut with the polluters and the feds, as our evidence shows.

Adrienne Anderson
Environmental Ethics Program
University of Colorado at Boulder - CB 339
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0339
Phone:  (303)492-2952 (message)
Fax:    (303)329-0217



You can find archived listserve messages on the CPEO website at http://www.cpeo.org/lists/index.html.

_____________________________________________________________
Got a Favorite Topic to Discuss?  Start a List at Topica.
http://www.topica.com/t/4