Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 31, 1994 TAG: 9403310065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Medium
Still, anyone involved with the plant's sudden, 24-hour closing Tuesday and who has survived layoff after layoff since 1989, had to be happy working at all. The arsenal failed to meet a federal deadline governing hazardous wastewater treatment.
"They're thrilled they're back to work," said Steve Gentry, an international representative for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union.
"We all worked together, which is very uncommon over here," he said.
Gentry was referring to the group effort of officials from the Army; Hercules Inc., which runs the arsenal under contract; the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality; and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, who worked out a temporary set-up that would meet Environmental Protection Agency demands - and would get all of the arsenal's employees working.
At least until Monday, though, they'll not be doing any jobs that have a direct impact on the plant's production of ammunition propellant.
Wednesday, Gentry said workers normally involved in production were painting, cleaning up, and helping to prepare the sites for a series of tanks that the plant hopes will serve as temporary receptacles for the wastewater.
"They're not just there sitting," he said.
Gentry pointed out that arsenal workers have had to endure several layoffs over the last few years. So when the arsenal had to shut down, workers "were afraid [they] might just keep it down."
The union agreed to let its workers do jobs not in their contracts so they could get work, period.
The union is negotiating with the Army over compensation for workers who missed their shifts Tuesday, Gentry and arsenal public affairs officer Nicole Kinser said.
"It's our position that it was no fault of their own that the plant was shut down," and therefore the workers should be paid, Gentry said. "We've got that contractually."
Gentry, who said the Army was negotiating in good faith, expects to know in a couple of days whether the workers will be paid.
Debate persisted Wednesday over who was at fault in the plant's closing. Four years ago Congress named 2,4 dinitrotoluene - present in the arsenal's wastewater - a cancer-causing agent and told the arsenal and other plants to upgrade their facilities.
The EPA regulated the facility under Toxicity Characteristics rules published in March 1990. The Department of Environmental Quality regulated it under listed waste rules published the same month.
Lt. Col. Bill Forrester, the arsenal's commander, wrote the EPA on March 23, mentioning both the agency's regulatory role and the department's.
"If there was a failure on the part of [the arsenal] it was the failure to recognize that the management of the containment by Virginia DEQ for a listed waste and by the EPA for TC as being separate and distinct," Forrester wrote.
The arsenal considered the state's department to be the controlling agency, an interpretation that was made four years ago, Kinser said.
Construction on a new wastewater treatment plant has been under way since last year, and the new plant is expected to be in operation in 13 months. The arsenal considered this a "good faith" action and thought no additional action was necessary, officials have said.
But EPA spokeswoman Ruth Podems said, "They've known all along that they had to do this."
And despite the arsenal's assertion that no DNT is leaking from the lagoon - designed to hold 1.6 million gallons of wastewater - "It has the potential to pollute," said Keith Buttleman, deputy director of public affairs with the Department of Environmental Quality.
"Either the message was not clear to them, or they didn't believe it," he said Tuesday. "The Army has simply failed to meet a requirement that was spelled out in plain English."
But the union's Gentry said, "I don't think anybody dropped the ball. It was Catch-22 for everybody.
"It was giving the law a very strict interpretation."
by CNB