New EPA official meets critics

Reactions of residents near the Stauffer site range from open skepticism to blunt disapproval as a new acting ombudsman visits.

By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 14, 2002

TARPON SPRINGS -- The usually soft-spoken Heather Malinowksi had a blunt message for the new ombudsman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who was in town Saturday to meet residents near the Stauffer Superfund site.

"You've stepped into a situation where you don't belong," said Malinowski, secretary of a local watchdog group.

Mary M. "Peggy" Boyer was named acting ombudsman after Robert Martin resigned the position when his job was transferred to the EPA's office of the inspector general. Martin contended the move was designed to silence him for exposing weaknesses in EPA cleanup plans in Tarpon Springs and other Superfund sites around the country.

Two years ago, Martin and his chief investigator, Hugh Kaufman, played a critical role in convincing the EPA to reconsider its cleanup plan for the 130-acre Stauffer site.

Now, in large part because of Martin's investigations, 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.

"We are waiting for him (Martin) to come back and finish what he started," said Malinowski of the Pinellas-Pasco Technical Advisory Group, known as Pi-Pa-TAG.

At the meeting Saturday, Nikki Tinsley, inspector general for the EPA, defended the transfer of the ombudsman to her office. Her office is designed to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse in the EPA, she said.

"Your case here in Tarpon Springs is one of our top priorities," Tinsley said.

Jessie Burke, the widow of a Stauffer employee, said she appealed to the inspector general's office for help years ago, but was ignored.

"The perception is that if Ms. Tinsley had done her job right in the first place, there would have been no need for the ombudsman," Burke said.

Stauffer Management President Brian Spiller said groundwater and geophysical studies -- which are designed to answer whether the plan to mound-and-cap the contaminated soil at Stauffer might trigger a sinkhole -- are expected to be completed by year's end. Then he said, scientific review will determine whether the mound-and-cap plan is feasible.

Kevin Pegg, technical adviser for Pi-Pa-TAG, said the biggest question is the quality of the studies performed. Pegg said based on his past experience dealing with the inspector general's office, "I have no confidence in them."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Labor on Friday ruled that Kaufman, who was removed last year as Martin's chief investigator, should be reinstated.

Information provided by witnesses "supports a conclusion that (Kaufman) had been prohibited from performing ombudsman-related duties in reprisal for performing a "too effective job,"' the letter states.

Unless the EPA appeals that decision, Kaufman said he hopes to resume his position.

"Tarpon Springs is one of my top priority cases to follow," Kaufman said. "If they (EPA officials) don't appeal, I'll be in Tarpon Springs within a month to continue with the real ombudsman process."

City officials have largely remained on the sidelines of the Stauffer debate, because the site lies just outside the city limits.

But on Saturday, Mayor Frank DiDonato said it has become clear to him that Stauffer officials are simply trying to secure the cheapest cleanup plan, rather than the safest one.

"It's pretty evident to me it's money and numbers," he said.

"We know it's contaminated," DiDonato said. And they also know the area is prone to sinkholes, he said, as the city learned when it created one by dredging and piling spoils on a nearby site.

"To keep spending money on testing, maybe we need to say, "Bite the bullet and haul it out of there.'

"I think it's time to develop a plan to move forward and get it done," he said.

Stauffer was a phosphorus processing plant operating on the site from 1947 until the early 1980s. Hazardous waste byproducts left behind include arsenic, antimony, beryllium, thallium, elemental phosphorus, radium-226, radon and carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbons.

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