Times Beach Dispatches (Part I)

[Cdstelzer@aol.com]

Accidents will happen:
Two emergency releases of dioxin-laden pollutants at
the Times Beach incinerator have residents burning mad
(first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), April 3, 1996)
BY C.D. Stelzer

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) predicted it would happen. But no
one on either side of the contentious issues surrounding the Times Beach
dioxin incinerator was totally prepared to deal with the reality of watching
thousands of pounds of dioxin-laden particulate matter spew into the air. 
 Two emergency releases, which bypass the Superfund incinerator's pollution
control system, have already occurred in the first two weeks of what is
expected to be a seven month burn. The latest accident occurred last Saturday
morning when a valve failed. On March 20, an electrical power outage resulted
in a discharge of dioxin-contaminated pollutants that lasted for about one
hour, according to a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources. Environmental activists, on the other hand, claim the same
incident lasted three-and-a-half hours. 
 The eminent danger posed by emissions is the main legal argument of a
federal lawsuit filed earlier in late March by the Citizens Against Dioxin
Incineration (CADI). CADI is comprised of Eureka-area residents and the Times
Beach Action Group (TBAG), a group of environmental activists. 
"We are convinced that incineration is releasing substantial amounts of
dioxin and other dangerous poisons into the environment both from the stack
and from other sources at the incinerator," says Mick  Harrison, the attorney
for CADI. Concerns over public health is reason enough, according to an
existing federal environmental law, to take the issue to court, Harrison
says. In a separate legal action, CADI will also ask the court this week to
allow the group to intervene and become a party to the 1990 consent decree
that mandates the cleanup, Harrison adds. 
 For its part, the EPA continues to maintain that emissions from the
incinerator will have a negligible impact on the health of nearby residents.
Those reassurances, however, contradict the agency's own studies, which
estimate that the population of the entire country has already been
over-exposed to dioxin. That opinion is further bolstered by a1994 EPA
analysis that indicates dioxin is a probable human carcinogen and is
responsible for immunological and reproductive disorders.
 According to the EPA's initial Times Beach risk assessment, a typical
emergency venting "may occur at a frequency of once per week and last for
several minutes. ... Because of the absence of a gas cleaning system,
approximately 350 pounds of treated particulate matter may be emitted during
a typical ... release." This means, by conservative estimates, more than a
ton of toxic material escaped from the dump stack on March 20. The EPA
euphemistically refers to such occurrences as an "Environmentally Safe
Temporary Emergency Release (ESTER).
In a subsequent risk assessment published in late February, the EPA called
ESTER events "hypothetical." The same report downplayed both the potential
effects of such accidents and even the possibility of them occurring. 
 Nevertheless, the pollution control sytem has now been acknowledged to have
been circumvented twice. Unfortunately, ESTER events are only one of the
potential hazards tied to the incinerator's ineffcient operation. Video tapes
made by incinerator opponents clearly show repeated incidences in which
billowing plumes of brown clouds can be seen escaping from the foundation and
intake conveyor. 
But the DNR denies any knowledge of these fugitive emissions.
 "Obviously, we had the ESTER events," Jim Silver of DNR told a group of
local residents last Saturday afternoon. The impromptu meeting at the
agency's office near Times Beach took place after the second emergency in as
many weeks. Silver told the concerned residents
that he was unaware of any other problems at the site. When asked about the
brown smoke pouring out of the base of the incinerator, Silver replied:  "I'm
not sure what you're talking about."
The DNR official admitted no one from the state regulatory agency or the EPA
monitors the incinerator site 24 hours a day. Instead, they rely on data
provided by Syntex. Syntex has in turn contracted IT Corp. to construct and
run the incinerator. 
Chesley Morrissey, a member of the St. Louis County Dioxin Monitoring
Committee, has accused the DNR official of not responding to the March 20
emergency in a timely manner. Morrissey, who was appointed to the watchdog
group by County Executive Buzz Westfall, says the Silver did not inform her
of the first emergency release until well after it happened. It then took
three days of repeated telephone calls for her to reach him, she says.
 The Monitoring Committee member is concerned about the frequency of the
emergencies given the brief time the incinerator has been operating. "It's
very alarming that you don't know what's going on," Morrissey told Silver on
Saturday.
 Morrissey and other residents of the area have been observing the
incinerator operations occasionally from a bluff overlooking the site. "This
is kind of amazing. We don't go up there that often to see what is going on
and just the few times we have gone up there we've got this on tape," she
says, referring to multiple instances of both fugitive emissions and
emergency releases that bypass the pollution controls.
 Last week, U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw transferred the CADI lawsuit
to Judge John F. Nangle, the senior jurist in the 8th Circuit who oversaw the
negotiations of the 1990 consent decree. In August, Nangle upheld the limited
terms of that court-ordered agreement by outlawing a St. Louis County
ordinance that imposed stricter emission standards on the incinerator. 
 Both the EPA, and Syntex, which entered the CADI suit of its own volition,
are asking Nangle to dismiss the case. According to their arguments,
Superfund law prohibits all litigation until after cleanups are completed,
making any citizens' objections to such projects a moot point.
Not surprisingly, Harrison, the attorney for CADI, disagrees with that legal
stance. "There is a provision of the Superfund statute that says consent
decrees can be challenged, sprovision of the Superfund law," says Harrison. This interpretation of the
law has been upheld in other federal cases, according to the environmental
attorney. As of yet, the Supreme Court has declined to take up the issue, he
says.
 As the legal fight continues, the dioxin-contaminated soil continues to roll
into Times Beach from some of the 26 other sites in Eastern Missouri that are
a part of the cleanup. All together more than 100,000 cubic yards are
scheduled to be burned. 
 An observer can see all this activity quite well from up on the bluff
overlooking the Meramec Valley. The vantage point is populated by a small
colony of prickly pears that cling precariously near the edge of a rock
outcropping. These dwarfed cacti are evidence of a botanical transition zone.
Human influences on the environment are far less subtle.
In the background, an EPA air monitoring station hums incessantly. Earlier in
the day, workers installed a second cyclone fence around this equipment, and
topped the new barrier with three strands of barbed wire. New roads are being
bulldozed along this ridge, too. The 3-acre wooded lots here sell for more
than $50,000. Soon houses will be built and foraging deer will move
elsewhere.
 Meanwhile, in the flood plain below, a column of white smoke rises from a
tall stack and then drifts away on the whims of the wind.
Some days it blows toward the high school in Eureka, other days it drifts
toward Sacred Heart elementary. Next to the smokestacks at the incinerator
site, the U.S. and Missouri flags also wave in the breeze.
C.D. Stelzer
http://home.stlnet.com/~cdstelzer/environ.html