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Personnel and other changes have occurred since EPA officials were challenged two years ago on the Stauffer site cleanup.
By RICHARD DANIELSON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 12, 2002
TARPON SPRINGS -- Two years ago, when the ombudsman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency came to town to discuss the Stauffer Chemical Superfund cleanup, things did not go well for the EPA.
Under harsh questioning from an investigator for the ombudsman -- an internal watchdog office within the EPA -- two EPA officials stalked out of a town meeting organized by U.S. Rep. Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs.
A lot has changed since June 2000: Thanks to questions raised by former EPA ombudsman Robert Martin, the assumptions underlying the Stauffer cleanup are getting another look. But Martin himself is gone; he quit his job this spring rather than accept a transfer that he said would have virtually redefined his office out of existence.
Now Bilirakis plans to host another community meeting on Stauffer, this time to let residents meet the EPA's new ombudsman, Mary M. "Peggy" Boyer, and EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley.
Bilirakis was pleased after an initial meeting with Boyer and Tinsley in May, but he wanted her to come to Tarpon Springs as well, said his spokeswoman, Christy Stefadouros.
"We want to make sure she knows this is our priority and we want to have this cleaned up as soon as possible," Stefadouros said.
Boyer was chosen to replace Martin, who resigned in April after EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman decided to move his office under Tinsley's jurisdiction. EPA officials have said the move was designed to give the ombudsman more independence and a bigger portfolio, but the move has drawn fierce criticism from two groups he championed.
One group consists of New Yorkers who live near ground zero and have been frustrated in efforts to raise concerns about the environmental hazards posed by the cleanup of the rubble from the World Trade Centers.
The second consists of legislators and activists from communities throughout the country -- including Tarpon Springs -- where Martin's investigations have raised concerns about how the EPA cleans up Superfund sites.
Tarpon Springs activist Mary Mosley doubted that residents would greet Boyer warmly Saturday.
"Considering how the EPA has treated this community for 20 years, I would think she would get a very cold reception," Mosley said recently.
She is not alone in her skepticism.
At a June 25 hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, several senators contended that EPA officials forced Martin out because he challenged them.
"Mr. Martin was ousted because the bureaucracy of the EPA did not like what he was doing, and it was retribution," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said.
But Tinsley told members of the committee that moving the ombudsman to her office made sense because her staff already investigates the EPA.
"We will conduct the ombudsman's work with independence and professionalism," she said.
Members of Congress, including Bilirakis, say they still have many more questions for the EPA on this subject.
"We're still trying to get a hearing . . . on the office of the ombudsman," Stefadouros said. "Is it independent? Has this move improved its function?"
In Tarpon Springs, Martin played a critical role two years ago in persuading the EPA to reconsider its cleanup plan for the 130-acre Stauffer site. A phosphorus-processing plant operating on the site from 1947 to until the early 1980s. Hazardous waste byproducts left behind include arsenic, antimony, beryllium, thallium, elemental phosphorus, radium-226, radon and carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
The EPA originally proposed mixing the waste at Stauffer with cement and sand to solidify it, then covering that with a watertight cap to prevent rain from trickling through the tainted soil and washing toxic chemicals into the groundwater.
Now, in large part because of Martin's efforts, studies are under way to determine whether the recommended cleanup plan would, among other things, endanger groundwater supplies by causing a sinkhole that would allow contaminated dirt to plunge into the aquifer.
This week, work being done as part of a new groundwater study is scheduled to begin at Stauffer.
The study, expected to be done by the end of the year, will include the drilling of 18 monitoring wells. Among other things, the study will try to evaluate the quality, chemistry and flow of water beneath the Stauffer site. It will look at both surface groundwater and the deeper water of the upper Floridan Aquifer and try to determine to what extent, if any, the two are connected.
-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Richard Danielson can be reached at (727) 445-4194 or Danielson@sptimes.com.
U.S. Rep. Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, is scheduled to hold a community meeting with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General Nikki Tinsley and new EPA ombudsman Mary M. "Peggy" Boyer from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Tarpon Springs City Hall, 324 E Pine St.