Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 17, 1995 TAG: 9503170020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SALTVILLE LENGTH: Long
Harry Dunham slapped his cap against his leg and shook his head.
``That stuff's been under there for some 15, 20 years. It's not bothering anything,'' he told the government man who was in town Wednesday.
Dunham, an 88-year-old former Olin Corp. worker, sees no sense in making the chemical company spend millions of dollars to dig up its former chlorine plant site, burn off the mercury, and then put the dirt back.
But what if a flood happens, or an earthquake? asked Patrick Gaughan of the Environmental Protection Agency. What about the people downstream, or somebody who uses the property years from now and doesn't know about the pollution? Mercury doesn't go away by itself.
It's the EPA's job to get rid of it - for good, Gaughan said. The agency has recommended burning soil from the Superfund site''retorting'' soil from the Superfund site and burning it in a giant kiln-like facility. The cost to Olin: about $20 million over 30 years.
``The reason we came down on the side of retorting The reason for taking that approach ``is the permanence,'' said Kimberly Hummel, a Superfund chief in the EPA's regional office in Philadelphia.
The federal agency apparently is alone in its quest for a total cleanup.
Olin rebuffed the plan on its release in January and hasn't let up. Not only is the process expensive, the company says, the transportation of dirt and the emissions would pose an additional risk to residents without gaining much more protection. Instead, Olin wants to put another clay cap on the site and keep an eye on it.
Olin has found a lot of supporters: the state and both its U.S. senators, Saltville Town Council, Saltville Mayor Frank ``T-Bone'' Lewis - and 382 people who signed a petition recently asking the EPA to back off.
``That mercury ain't going anywhere,'' said Carl Slate, an Olin retiree who started the petition. ``If it was me, I wouldn't spend a dime. The chemical company will know what to do.''
That's not an uncommon sentiment in this Smyth County community, where thousands of men, their fathers and grandfathers worked at the plant. For nearly a century, Olin and its predecessor turned the region's limestone and salt into baking soda, caustic soda, chlorine and other chemicals. In the 1950s, mercury was used, and regularly dumped in waste ponds and in the North Fork of the Holston River.
Olin shut down in 1972, saying it couldn't afford to comply with new environmental laws. Two massive waste ponds - one covers 80 acres - and the former chlorine plant site landed on the nation's Superfund list eleven years later. The international company has spent about $22.5 million studying and stopping the various sources of pollution.
On Thursday, Charles Newton, Olin's vice president of environmental affairs, told a congressional subcommittee the federal government has gone too far. The House subcommittee on commerce, trade and hazardous materials, which is revamping the Superfund law, heard about hazardous waste sites around the country from industry and from the public.
Newton said EPA's plan for Saltville is flawed, risky, expensive - and unnecessary because there's no existing threat to human health or the environment.
``It is clear ... that 'treatment' is the 'holy grail' at EPA,'' Newton testified. ``It is totally contrary to common sense to spend these vast sums of money to make dirt 15 feet deep safe for human health when people will never be exposed to it.''
Sens. Charles Robb and John Warner co-signed a letter this month asking the EPA to reconsider. About the same time, Peter Schmidt, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, sent a letter disagreeing with some of the ``stringent features'' of the cleanup, particularly the plan to burn the dirt.
The EPA's Hummel acknowledged there apparently is no immediate health or environmental threat from the mercury. But soil samples show levels thousands of times higher than federal standards, and ground-water samples show levels hundreds of times higher.
``With the numbers we're seeing, it's not such a stretch of the imagination that it's getting into the river,'' she said.
Not everyone in town disagrees with the EPA.
Harry Hogston, another ex-Olin worker, knows about the devastating neurological and genetic damage from ingesting or breathing mercury. Although he's concerned about emissions from burning the dirt, ``I think it should be cleaned up, 100 percent, as long as it's done right,'' Hogston said.
Members of Mountain Empire Environmental Team, a community group whose mission is to raise awareness about the potential pollution problems, are concerned about emissions, as well as leaving mercury in the ground.
But Fred Dye, president of the group, is even more worried that the state, the senators and others who are siding with Olin will soon forget about the people of Saltville.
``It may all just fold up and go back to the way it was,'' he said.
by CNB