The IT-Quanterra Connection

[Cdstelzer@aol.com]

TWICE BURNED

The lab involved in testing emissions at Times Beach is partly owned by
the company that operates the dioxin incinerator


BY C.D. STELZER
first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Aug. 28, 1996

When IT Analytical Services merged with another company and became Quanterra
Environmental
Services in 1994, the nascent laboratory didn't even bother to change the
phone number. The newly
formed company also remained at the same location, 13715 Rider Trail North,
in a strip of innocuous
one-story offices known as the Business Center in Earth City. The doors to
the lab were locked last
Saturday, and mirror windows made it impossible to see the interior.
Corporation records at the Missouri
secretary of state's office in Jefferson City show that Quanterra was
officially dissolved as a business in
the state in late 1994. 

 Nevertheless, the lab took part in important tests of stack
emissions conducted in November 1995 at the Times Beach dioxin
incinerator, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund
cleanup near Eureka (see sidebar). The test results assured the
EPA, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the
public that the incinerator would operate safely. Based on these
test results and other criteria, the DNR issued a requisite permit
for the incinerator to operate earlier this year. 

    Despite the mirror windows at the lab and the smoke now
flowing from the incinerator stacks, this much is clear: IT
Analytical was owned by International Technology Corp. (IT), and
Quanterra, its successor, is still partially controlled by IT --
the builder and operator of the Times Beach dioxin incinerator.
IT, in turn, has a contract with Syntex, the corporation held
liable for disposing of dioxin-contaminated soil at Times Beach
and more than two dozen other sites in Eastern Missouri.

     In short, the lab involved in testing incinerator emissions
is partly owned by the company that operates the incinerator.

      Steve Taylor, an organizer for the Times Beach Action Group
(TBAG), objected  to the Quanterra-IT relationship in a meeting
with high-level EPA officials last Wednesday night at the Hilton
Hotel in Frontenac. Robert Martin, the ombudsman from the agency's
Washington, D.C., headquarters, chaired the meeting, which was
attended by 15 citizens, an aide to U.S. Rep. Jim Talent (R-2nd)
and two other EPA officals.

             "We have always had problems with how the trial burn
       was
conducted. Now we  have found that IT -- the owner of the
incinerator -- was solely responsible forthe physical custody of
the stack samples," Taylor says. "There has always been  a serious
problem with credibility with (EPA) Region VII and the information 
that we've received pertaining to this incinerator (see sidebar).
To date, this is  probably the most blatant example of allowing
those who have a financial interest in this cleanup to proceed
without any oversight." 


      That a laboratory with ties to the incinerator operator
would be allowed to handle test samples from a Superfund site is
enough to raise concerns, but there is another nettlesome detail
that casts doubt on the credibility of the lab work. 

      In 1990, IT purchased the assets of metaTRACE, a laboratory
located at the same address in Earth City and having the same
phone number as the two previously cited labs. In the year
preceding the acquisition, metaTRACE came under  scrutiny for
conducting fraudulent tests for the EPA, including faulty soil
analysis at Times Beach and other dioxin sites in Eastern
Missouri. Ultimately, the EPA canceled metaTRACE's contracts and
two company officials pled guilty to fraud charges. The rescinded
contracts had a value of more than $8.7 million.Most of that money
was earmarked for EPA Region VII, which includes the St. Louis
area. 

      After purchasing metaTRACE, IT moved its own analytical
operation into the defunct lab's Earth City office. MetaTRACE
didn't dissolve until 1992,  according to Martha Steincamp, head
counsel for Region VII. So it appears IT Analytical in some manner
shared the facility. IT even hired some of  metaTRACE's employees,
Steincamp concedes. When the sign on the front door changed to
Quanterra in 1994, IT Engineering conveniently moved in next door. 
Again, if this is not disturbing enough, state records show that
Quanterra was dissolved in December 1994 for failure to file an
annual report. Quanterra,in other words, doesn't even exist as a
corporate fiction in the state.

     IT created Quanterra in May 1994, when it merged IT
Analytical with Enseco, an  environmental test lab owned by
Corning Inc. Originally, each company held a 50 percent stake in
the joint subsidiary. IT's share of the lab has since decreased to
19 percent, following a $20 million buyout by Corning in January.
The change in the percentage of ownership, however, did not take
place until after criticalstack-emissions tests were conducted in
November. The results of those tests were published in January.
Quanterra's name appears on the title page of that  report. 
Despite the lab's obvious role in the stack tests and its
connections to IT, Bob Feild -- the EPA project manager at Times
Beach -- denied knowledge of Quanterra's participation at last
week's meeting in Frontenac. Under questioning by Mick Harrison,
an attorney for the Citizens Against Dioxin Incineration (CADI),
Feild stated: "I'm not aware of any involvement that they
(Quanterra) had in the chain of custody." 

     Feild's denial contradicts documents provided to the RFT by
the Region VII office last Friday. The documents show a
representative of Quanterra signed over stack-emissions samples to
an employee of Triangle Laboratories of Durham, N.C. Triangle was
charged with analyzing the samples. Nevertheless, a lapse of seven
to eight days existed between the time the samples were collected
and the point when Quanterra handed them over to the other lab.
Environmentalists familiar with the case say the time lapse could
invalidate the tests results, if the samples were not stored and
handled properly.

      In a phone interview on Monday, Feild dismissed all of these
issues as
        inconsequential. Feild argued that it is standard procedure
       for
the incinerator  operator to collect test samples. He claimed all
aspects of the tests were overseen  properly by the EPA and that
safeguards prohibited any kind of manipulation of the findings. 


      "We haven't done any research as to the current
 status of a company called Quanterra," Feild
 says. "It doesn't really matter if IT themselves
 did the work or if they paid a partially owned
 subsidiary to do the work. The contractual
 relationship between the operator and Syntex is
 really not pertinent here. It's not our concern,
 and we certainly don't have that information.
 We don't know who Quanterra is under direct
 contract with."

      The RFT filed a Freedom of Information Act
 request with the EPA on this matter last Friday.
In a letter to EPA regional administrator Dennis
 Grams last week, Rep. Talent, whose district
 includes Times Beach, requested "all chain of
 custody documents for all stack samples
 collected during the dioxin stack test, which
 took place in November of 1995." A
 spokesperson for Talent could not be reached
 for comment. 
Spokespersons for IT, Quanterra and Corning did not return
calls placed to them. An official at the EPA's Criminal
Investigations Division in Kansas City would not confirm or deny
whether an inquiry had been initiated into the matter.
This latest controversy follows an announcement in July that
the completion date for the incineration has been pushed back to
early next year because an estimated 70 tons of additional
contaminated dirt will need to be burned. Since initiating
operations in March, the incinerator has been plagued by a series
of emergency releases that have spewed unknown quantities of
untreated dioxin-contaminated particulate matter into the
atmosphere. The EPA's own dioxin draft reassessment concludes that
dioxin is a likely human carcinogen and is responsible for 
reproductive and immunological problems. EPA research further
indicates that
everyone is already overexposed to the toxin, and incineration
is one of the  sources of the pollution.