Superfund Cleanup Claims First Victim

[Cdstelzer@aol.com]

Nationsway Meeting

Representatives from two federal agencies and a Missouri Department of Health
(MDOH) official fended off a barrage of hostile questions from employees at
the Nationsway Transport Service Inc.in St. Louis on Monday. At the meeting,
 workers and their union representatives asked the EPA for a delay to allow
independent health experts to assess the situation.  It was not clear at
press time on Monday whether the EPA would accede to the request. 
      The controversy has risen in advance of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) plans calling for the excavation of  the Jones Truck
Lines site this week.  The abandoned truck terminal on Hall Street is one of
the 27 designated dioxin sites in Eastern Missouri, which  are scheduled to
be remediated as a part of the Times Beach Superfund cleanup. That project
involves transporting an estimated 100,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated
soil and burning it at a temporary incinerator that is being constructed at
the former town of Times Beach in St. Louis County.
 Nationsway truck terminal employees, most of whom are members of Teamsters
Local 600, are concerned about the potential exposure they will face when the
EPA begins moving the toxic dirt.  The Nationsway terminal is directly
adjacent to the Jones site.  The  EPA  belatedly acknowledged that dioxin
contamination has migrated from the Jones site and onto the property where
Nationsway is located (Toxic Migration, the RFT, Oct. 11). Workers at
Nationsway were not informed until earlier this month of the imminent cleanup
or the migration depite test results being completed more than a year ago. 
  On Monday, a spokesman for the agency told  those attending the meeting
that dioxin has also been found at Gully Transportation,  the truck terminal
to the south of Jones. Workers there have yet to be informed, says Mark J.
Thomas, an EPA  on-site coordinator. 
 According to the EPA's time schedule, the excavations on this portion of
Hall Street will be finished in a few weeks. The cleanup  includes digging up
soil both on and off of the Jones site, vacuuming the interior of the defunct
terminal warehouse and filling in a large sinkhole in the  truck lot.  
 Officials from the EPA, MDOH and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry (ATSDR) all tried to convince the workers that  levels of dioxin at
 Jones are so low that they pose little or no health risk. Dioxin levels of
more than 400 parts per billion (ppb) have been found at the site. Industrial
standards require cleanups of dioxin levels exceeding 20 ppb.  The officials
stressed that long term exposure to the toxin is the real danger. Gale
Carlson of MDOH told the workers that the diesel fumes they breathe daily
 contain higher levels of dioxin than the contaminated soil which is to be
removed. 
 Gregory R. Evans,  a community health expert at St. Louis University, spoke
to the employees at the request of the management of Nationsway. He asserted
that dioxin-exposure has never been proven to be lethal.  "(Moreover), there
has never been a person who has ever even come down sick with anything done
with dioxin," Evans told the workers. 
  The recently finalized reassessment of dioxin conducted by the EPA found it
to be a suspected human carcinogen and responsible for human reproductive and
immunological problems. 
  Given that fact alone, the Teamsters have reasonable cause to doubt Evans'
reassurances. On Monday, Local 600 officials asked the EPA to delay the Jones
excavation. Thomas of the EPA gave no indication that the project would be
held up more than possibly a day. In defense of the agency's plans,  Thomas
claimed the 1990 consent degree, which mandated the cleanup, requires the EPA
to begin excavating at Jones. There is, however, no time schedule for
individual site cleanups included in the consent decree.
      Union members are concerned about the rush and they question why they
were not informed in advance of the EPA's plans. If the EPA would temporarily
hold off on the Jones excavation, workers say the potential for further human
exposure could be lessened because Nationsway's lease expires in February and
the company has had  longstanding plans to relocate to a larger facility. 
  "Our local attorneys are checking into whether we can get any kind of court
order against them (the EPA)," says Rick Schleipman, a business agent for
Local 600. Schleipman was unsure at press time on Monday what the union
lawyers would recommend. At the same time, the local has gained the support
of its International union, which is supplying its own health experts. They
are expected to arrive in St. Louis early this week to begin their own
investigation of the Jones site.
  More than one of the Nationsway workers say they have relatives  that
worked at the Jones terminal who died of multiple forms of cancer. In 1971,
Russell Bliss sprayed the then-unpaved truck lot with dioxin-contaminated
waste oil as a dust suprressant.
 "My father passed away while he was working for Jones Truck Lines," says
Nationsway employee Art Compton. "He had multiple cancers. Whenever they
diagnosed him, they gave him six months and he died in 29 days. Twenty of
those days were on morphine." After arguing with the federal and state health
officials at the meeting on Monday, Compton, 50, left the Nationsway office
to tour the nearby Jones site.  He had a heart attack at the scene and has
now been hospitalized.  

























                                                                         C.D.
Stelzer