A Times Editorial

DEP's entry to Stauffer mess late, welcome

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 23, 2000

Better late than never is an axiom that certainly applies to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's entry into the debate over cleaning up the former Stauffer Chemical plant site near Tarpon Springs.

Last week, the DEP asked a judge for the right to intervene in the Superfund process. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking a consent decree in federal court to begin its "pile and cap" method of cleaning up pollutants in the ground. Only a week was left for the DEP to enter the case.

Residents living near the Superfund site on the banks of the Anclote River have worried that the plan is flawed. The chemical plant was used for decades to process elemental phosphorus, but it left behind more than 30 chemicals and radioactive elements, including arsenic, lead and radium-226. The EPA proposes to stack 300,000 cubic yards of toxic soil in mounds and cover them with plastic and soil, saying the method has worked elsewhere.

But at the only Superfund site where radioactive material was included -- Shattuck Chemical in Denver -- the pile and cap method was found to be flawed. The piles could leak without being detected, said EPA ombudsman Bob Martin. And Martin has also raised concerns about the Stauffer site's vulnerability to sinkholes, which could undermine the mounds of soil and contaminate the area's groundwater.

The state DEP has clashed with the EPA over certain details of the cleanup, particularly the acceptable level of arsenic in the soil. The EPA standard would allow 26 times more of the heavy metal in the soil than state limits. Residents who question the effectiveness of the cleanup plan have looked to the DEP for support, but until state Sen. Jack Latvala pressured the state agency into getting involved, it played a passive role.

That apparently changed with the DEP's intervention in the federal court case last week. The Department of Environmental Protection may have finally lived up to its name and accepted its responsibility for protecting the residents and environment around the Stauffer Superfund site.

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