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Coronet pollution worse than revealed, lawyer says

Celebrity Erin Brockovich also meets with local environmental leaders.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published April 29, 2005

TAMPA - Recent test results from the shuttered Coronet Industries facility in Plant City found levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic that are hundreds of times higher than what the government considers safe, lawyers suing Coronet said Thursday.

A review of past government inspections suggests the Florida Department of Environmental Protection knew about the problem as recently as 2002 - two years before Coronet shut its phosphate facility amid suspicions from neighbors that it caused cancer and other illnesses.

Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency warned in 1989 that groundwater contamination was "of major concern at the site." Heavy metals from the plant's processing likely had migrated into the groundwater, the EPA memo stated, and could "adversely affect the health" of the more than 36,000 people drinking from private or municipal wells within 3 miles of the plant.

Texas lawyer Jim Ross revealed those recent discoveries Thursday night at the Quorum Hotel, where he and environmentalist celebrity Erin Brockovich - inspiration for the 2000 Julia Roberts movie - met with 100 or so local environmental leaders and activists.

Ross - whose firm, McCurdy and McCurdy, is one of three representing about 1,000 Plant City residents in a class-action lawsuit against Coronet - said that by Monday he will file notice of his firm's intent to sue the Florida DEP and the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission.

Those agencies failed to keep residents living around the plant free from toxic exposure, he said.

"We have sued the industry," he said. "Now we intend to sue the government."

The two government agencies will have six months to respond to the filing, Ross said.

Tom Stewart, a spokesman for Coronet, said the company is reviewing the 7,000 pages of documents regarding onsite testing, received two days ago from plaintiffs' attorneys.

Asked about the apparent higher levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic, Stewart said past studies dispute that finding.

"Based on all the public health studies to date - and they have tested the air, the water, the soil, fish and human urine, too - there absolutely was no evidence that residents near the site have been harmed," Stewart said. "The bottom line is that Coronet continues to do the right thing by working with the (federal and state) government agencies to develop an appropriate plan to address the environmental issues onsite."

Coronet closed its Plant City operation in March 2004, 98 years after opening there, saying it was no longer profitable to keep the doors open.

The shutdown came after hundreds of residents joined the class-action pollution lawsuit. It also followed months of local, state and federal inspections in response to residents' health complaints. Health officials have said that some pollution exceeds federal standards, but they maintain it is not enough to constitute a public health threat.

Thursday night, though, Ross presented preliminary results from his firm's recent two-week inspection of the plant that showed, for example, that dirt and water samples contained 7,150 parts per billion of arsenic. The federal standard is 10 parts per billion, which means someone drinking 2 liters of water with that level of arsenic every day for 70 years would face a 1 in 1-million chance of getting cancer.

The Florida DEP toured the site three years ago and found arsenic levels at 6,575 parts per billion, Ross said. He said his firm got the information through a federal public records request.

"It was in there among the thousands and thousands and thousands of pages we got," he said.

Last month's sample found similarly alarming levels of cadmium and lead, Ross said.

Coronet's Stewart pointed out that the 1989 U.S. EPA study took place about four years before the company owned the property.

Brockovich used her speaking time to address broader thoughts on the environment.

"I see the environment as an invisible spirit that hovers over us," she said. "If we take care of it, it will take care of us."

Staff writer Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 29, 2005, 00:33:10]