Times Beach

[Cdstelzer@aol.com]

Since late August, the alternative weekly Riverfront Times newspaper in St.
Louis has ran a series of exposes revealing possible corruption at the Times
Beach Superfund site near Eureka, Mo. 
     On Friday, the final report by EPA national ombudsman Bob Martin
recommended a shut down and retest at the dioxin incinerator. Martin's report
also refers to potential criminal activity surrounding the clean up. For
details of the developing scandal see the Times Beach Chronicle at
http://home.stlnet.com/~cdstelzer/chrono.html

The following story appeared on Dec. 18, prior to the issuance of Martin's
final report.

EXECUTIVE INACTION
St. Louis County Executive Buzz Westfall refuses to heed the advise of his
own
citizens watchdog group , which now recommends a new stack emissions test is
needed
at the Times Beach incinerator

BY C.D. STELZER


first published in the Riverfront Times, (St. Louis) Dec. 18, 1996

Despite mounting evidence of wrongdoing, St. Louis County Executive Buzz
Westfall refused last week to call for a retest of stack emissions at the
controversial Times Beach dioxin incinerator near
Eureka. The St. Louis County Dioxin Monitoring Committee voted unanimously in
favor of such a
measure on Dec. 10. 

Committee members -- who are all Westfall appointees -- recommended the
county executive ask the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to shut down the incinerator until new test results
confirm whether the project is safe. The
committee's recommendation follows the release of an EPA ombudsman's report
last month calling for a similar course of
action ("Taking a New Stack," RFT, Nov. 27). Questions regarding the November
1995 stack emissions test surfaced
earlier this year, after opponents of the incinerator discovered numerous
violations of scientific protocol, including the
alteration documents and the unexplained disappearance of sample tubes. 

"As of yet, he is not sending a letter to the EPA to shut the thing down,"
says Max Scott, a spokesman for Westfall. "I
mean it would be a public relations move anyway. The county executive has no
power to shut this thing down."

Scott, however, is exaggerating Westfall's impotence. The EPA ombudsman has
called for public comments on this matter,
and a locally elected official's opinion would certainly be handled with
deference. Westfall's reticence also contradicts his
own past position on the incinerator. During his 1990 campaign, he repeatedly
attacked his opponent, incumbent H.C.
Milford, for not taking a stronger stand on the issue. At that time Westfall
wooed Eureka-area voters by telling them: ''The
federal government is doing something bad to St. Louis County, and H. Milford
is sitting silently by.'' 

Westfall and his minions now routinely condemn critics of the incinerator as
conspiracy theorists. In a telephone interview
last Friday, for example, Scott repeatedly referred to Republican Councilman
Greg Quinn as a conspiracy theorist for
suggesting anything might have gone awry with the Times Beach project. Quinn
represents the district in West St. Louis
County where the incinerator is located. 

Another Westfall partisan, county counselor John Ross, used the conspiracy
theory stigma to discredit a resolution offered
by Quinn at the County Council meeting last Thursday. The Democratic majority
on the council subsequently defeated the
measure 4-2. 

Quinn had proposed the council urge the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) to order a shut down of the
incinerator until the state health department released data on a blood study
of residents who live near the facility. Instead,
the council passed a measure asking for the data, but not demanding a shut
down or retest. The health department has
claimed average dioxin levels have decreased among Eureka-area residents, but
refuses to turn over the raw data so it can
be independently analyzed ("Blood Feud," RFT, Nov. 13). 

After the adoption of the watered-down resolution, Quinn told the council:
"What you're seeing here in this resolution is a
misguided effort by the majority party to support the county executive who
wants incineration to continue at Times Beach
in spite of the fact that we've had a unanimous recommendation from his own
Dioxin Monitoring Committee. He's willing
to disregard that."

Westfall was absent from the proceedings, as is often the case when Times
Beach is on the agenda. If he had been there,
the county executive may have been heartened by the testimony of EPA project
manager Bob Feild, who defended the
safety of the incinerator based on air monitoring data. 

After the meeting, Feild and EPA lawyer Martha Steincamp deflected questions
by saying, "We have to catch a plane."
Gary Pendergrass of Agribusiness Technologies Inc., the company liable for
the clean up, had even less to say. When
asked about his knowledge of a possible cover up of misdeeds during the stack
test, Pendergrass stared vacuously at the
RFT reporter and remained mute ("Why the Times Beach Incinerator Should be
Shut Down," RFT, Nov. 20).

Members of the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG) have charged that a conflict
of interest exists because International
Technology Inc. (IT), the incinerator operator, owned half of Quanterra
Environmental Services when the stack test was
conducted. Quanterra is known to have mishandled sample tubes following that
test ("Twice Burned," RFT, Aug. 28).

The irregularities at Times Beach now raise larger questions. Two thirds of
IT's contracts are with the federal government,
including the Departments of Defense and Energy. Revenues from this work in
fiscal 1996 are estimated at more $250
million. In the past, Quanterra's William C. Anderson, the quality assurance
officer at Times Beach, has also been involved
in a trial burn at the U.S. Army chemical weapons incinerator in Utah. The
Army is now investigating the safety of that
incinerator, after whistleblowers there have repeatedly alleged that the
incinerator isn't operating properly. In 1993, IT's St.
Louis lab also did sampling for a radioactive waste clean up in Alaska, The
Riverfront Times has learned. 

Closer to home, incinerator critic Fred Striley -- who is a member of the
monitoring committee -- isn't satisfied in regard to
the accuracy of the air monitoring at Times Beach. "Citizens groups have
pointed out over the last couple of years
numerous problems with the risk assessment that was prepared for the Times
Beach site by CH2M Hill at EPA Region
VII's direction -- problems like failing to account for fugitive emissions,"
say Striley. Last week, the EPA notified the
monitoring committee that its request for an air monitor at the incinerator
site itself had been denied, according to Striley.

In 1992, CH2M Hill, one of the EPA's most frequently relied on contractors,
fell under the scrutiny of the White House
Office of Management and Budget, the congressional General Accounting Office
and the EPA itself. Investigators found
the Corvallis, Ore.-based engineering firm had overcharged the government by
$5 million for parties, baseball tickets,
liquor and country club fees among other things. In addition, more than 95
percent of CH2M Hill's time sheets were
altered. Nonetheless, EPA Region VII choice CH2M Hill to do the Times Beach
risk assessment completed in 1994. 

Last Tuesday, one TBAG member was arrested at the monitoring committee
meeting, which was held at the clean up site
offices. Another TBAG protester locked her neck to the entrance gate with a
kryptonite bicycle lock. 

None of thedemonstrators swayed Retired Army Lt. Gen. Kenneth E. Lewi's
opinion, however. At 66 years of age, the
former officer is arguably the most conservative member of the monitoring
committee, and he expresses confidence in the
safety of the incinerator. Nevertheless, Lewi sided with the other committee
members in asking for a shut down and retest.

"The committee has a responsibility to tell Mr. Westfall what we think based
on the information we have," says Lewi. "The
reason I voted that way was to remove doubt from the public as to whether or
not the (original ) test was valid."

It remains to be seen whether the Westfall administration will label the
general a conspiracy theorist, too.