2003 CPEO Brownfields List Archive

From: Emery Graham <egraham@ci.wilmington.de.us>
Date: 24 Jul 2003 14:12:24 -0000
Reply: cpeo-brownfields
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] State of Delaware Environmental Agency Caught In Violation of EPA Re
 

The following article appeared in the Wilmington, Delaware’s “Wilmington News Journal” (www.delawareonline.com) on 7/23/03. The impact of the article on Brownfields development, PRP relationships, and community trust is likely to be negative. The perception of the State of Delaware’s environmental regulation agency will be that it doesn’t believe in following its own rules and that the Federal government must police the State of Delaware to make sure it doesn’t jeopardize its citizens’ public health or the natural environment  by its lax enforcement of EPA regulations. It will be very instructive to see how the State’s Executive Office and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) behaves in the face of being caught in violation of EPA regulations and the State’s Hazardous Substance Control Act.

 

DNREC has been accepting  risk” based” clean up standards from its VCP participants. It’s more than interesting to note that DNREC Secretary Hughes insists DNREC’s waste site will be “cleaned to the highest standards.”  What does that mean, that they’re going to clean a 9.7 acre field to “health” based standards?

 

This apprehension of DNREC comes at a time when the agency is considering letting the Dupont Company open a sulfuric acid plant on the Motiva site even though the Delaware City area is filled with chemical company wastes and was the location of a disastrous acid spill. Green Delaware, who opposes the Dupont permit, has an email discussion of the last public hearing posted on CPEO dated 7/22/03.

 

If DNREC cleans it rural site to health based standards, what will the people living in the urban residential areas of Wilmington have a right to expect regarding the clean up standards for the arsenic laden tannery waste sites near (http://www.tetratech-de.com/tanneries/activity.asp) their homes or in parks where their children play, e.g., Christian, Joe White, and Kruse parks. Should they continue to accept the “you have to eat an aspirin size piece of arsenic contaminated soil for 20 years” standard argument that is used to support “risk” based clean ups in their neighborhoods or should they demand that sites be “cleaned to the highest standards?”

 

Emery Graham

 

 

EPA unearths toxins at DNREC site
Investigators arrived with warrant

By MOLLY MURRAY AND PATRICK JACKSON
Staff reporters
07/23/2003

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unearthed as many as 17 five-gallon containers filled with a toxic wood preservative Tuesday in a search of property near Lewes owned by the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, DNREC Secretary John A. Hughes said Tuesday.

The discovery followed a day of searching and digging on the 9.7-acre site off of Pilottown Road that serves as the headquarters for DNREC's Division of Soil and Water Conservation. EPA investigators arrived unannounced at 7:10 a.m. with a warrant authorizing a search for hazardous waste that the federal agency suspected was buried on the property.

Patrick Boyle, an EPA spokesman, said agents were investigating a pollution report and collecting samples for laboratory analysis. He declined further comment.

Hughes said the wood preservative discovered on land the state has owned since 1995 was the chemical pentachlorophenol, which was banned by the EPA in 1987. The chemical can cause nerve damage and also harm the kidneys and liver. It also is a suspected carcinogen.

Hughes said DNREC had a supply of the chemical, but disposed of it years ago by shipping it to a disposal company in Canada. He said he had no knowledge of hazardous materials being buried at the Lewes-area site, but thinks they must have been buried after DNREC bought the land. Hughes led the conservation division for more than a decade before he was named state environmental secretary last year.

Hughes said he would let the EPA finish its investigation. Any employees responsible for the illegal burial of the chemical would face disciplinary action from DNREC.

"In an environmental agency, this is a grave offense," Hughes said. "I want to assure our neighbors that we will not allow this, that we will proceed to clean this up to the highest standards."

The site is located along the Broadkill River just west of Roosevelt Inlet. It was used as a clam-processing plant by Doxsee Food Corp. until the factory closed in 1986. It later was used by a company that was working to develop a better system of desalinating sea water. The state acquired the property in August 1995 for $500,000.

Nancy Kimbro, a spokeswoman for DNREC, said the state used the land primarily as a base for the division's beach preservation and dredging operations. The site has several warehouses and a small office building, and 21 DNREC employees are based there, she said.

In recent years, the state also has used a small corner of the property for a composting operation for the thick algae called sea lettuce harvested from Rehoboth and Indian River bays, Kimbro said.

The agents conducting the Tuesday search were from the EPA's Philadelphia and New York offices. Agents removed boxes of documents from the DNREC office and used a backhoe to dig at the western corner of the property where the chemicals were found.

Sen. Gary Simpson, R- Milford, said he was surprised by the investigation.

"No one called me about it, which I find a little bit surprising. I can't imagine the state, especially the Department of Natural Resources, doing something that would violate environmental laws."

Sen. George H. Bunting Jr., D-Bethany Beach, said he was puzzled by the find.

"It's not like this is XYZ Corp. that might learn disposing of something would cost $200,000 and bury it instead," Bunting said. "The state doesn't work that way. We pay the money needed to dispose of things properly."

Reach Molly Murray at 856-7372 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Reach Patrick Jackson at 678-4274 or pjackson@delawareonline.com.

 

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