The EPA should take great care in deciding whether it is safe to mound and cap a pile of dangerously contaminated dirt at the former Stauffer Chemical site near Tarpon Springs.
Published September 4, 2003
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving closer to deciding whether a North Pinellas Superfund site will be "cleaned up" by mounding and capping thousands of tons of contaminated soil and leaving this monument to environmental ignorance forevermore on land beside the Anclote River.
The EPA has received two of three expected studies that will be used to help determine whether the mound-and-cap method is safe for the former Stauffer Chemical site just outside Tarpon Springs. Because the consultants were hired by Stauffer and Stauffer is pushing for the mound-and-cap plan, it isn't surprising that the studies found no reason to avoid mounding and capping.
The two studies were done to respond to critics' claims that the mound-and-cap method is inappropriate for the site because of sinkhole activity in the area and because, if the mound leaked, groundwater could be polluted by the more than 30 contaminants left behind when the phosphate processing plant closed in 1981. One Stauffer study found that while a portion of the property has sinkholes, they are old and the ground appears stable now. The other declared that there was little chance of contaminants leaching into the groundwater. A third study expected any day now will review the feasibility of various mound-and-cap materials.
Part of the trouble with the problem-plagued U.S. Superfund program is that the EPA often bases cleanup decisions on studies funded by the polluters and performed by their consultants. The EPA argues that it reviews the consultants and the studies to make sure that scientific methods are used, but it naturally is difficult for those who are affected by a Superfund site to trust that such studies are accurate and performed with the public's, rather than the polluter's, best interest in mind.
And so it is with those who live near the Stauffer site, who have for years struggled to force EPA and other agencies to spend more time studying the site and its cleanup. They are skeptical about the cheerleading for the mound-and-cap method in the new Stauffer studies. A local geologist and sinkhole expert who has studied Pinellas soils for years insists that the Stauffer site is geologically unstable and prone to sinkholes. And the property's proximity to the coast continues to trouble some people, who argue that it just doesn't make sense to pile up a mountain of dangerously contaminated dirt beside a river and close to the Gulf of Mexico and just leave it there.
While residents criticize the EPA, another federal department, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, is being applauded for its continued examination of Stauffer's health impacts. The agency assembled a panel of medical experts that met in Atlanta recently and affirmed that the plant was a threat to public health and to the welfare of its workers while it operated. The agency is still trying to track down about 900 of the plant's former workers to learn the state of their health, but panel members suggested that ATSDR focus on finding out what killed hundreds of workers who have died since the plant closed. No one knows if their deaths can be linked to Stauffer and their routine exposure to asbestos, heavy metals and radioactive elements on the job.
Phosphate plants pose hazards for workers and neighbors - something those who live near the Coronet Industries phosphate plant in eastern Hillsborough County are just learning - and those hazards do not evaporate when a plant no longer operates. While EPA and Stauffer officials may be frustrated that cleanup plans have been slowed by so many questions and criticisms from North Pinellas residents, the decision about how to safely and permanently clean up the Stauffer site is too important to be rushed.
