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He writes the federal agency demanding an apology for its officials walking out of a meeting.
By RICHARD DANIELSON
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 7, 2000
TARPON SPRINGS -- The day after two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials abruptly walked out of a community meeting he organized, U.S. Rep. Michael Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor, complained to the EPA that he was "outraged" at the snub.
"The contempt displayed by these civil servants toward the taxpaying public reflects poorly on your office, the EPA and our federal government," Bilirakis said in a letter Tuesday to John H. Hankinson Jr., administrator of the EPA's Region 4 office in Atlanta. He demanded an apology and an explanation for the walkout.
Hankinson was traveling Tuesday evening and could not be reached for comment, according to his office.
Bilirakis wrote that residents near the Stauffer chemical plant Superfund site had been "extremely distrustful" of the EPA's efforts to clean up the area.
But recently, he added, they were encouraged by the efforts of the national Superfund ombudsman, an independent EPA watchdog, to launch his own investigation of the cleanup plan.
"Unfortunately," Bilirakis wrote, "any progress achieved over the past several months in increasing public confidence was obliterated by the behavior of EPA's representatives, Joanne Benante and (attorney) Michelle Staes."
The officials said at the start of the two-hour meeting at Tarpon Springs City Hall that they would leave after making a brief presentation about the cleanup and taking 10 minutes of questions. Some of the 70 people at the meeting jeered and booed as they left.
"The meeting was very, very important last night, because I think it showed congressman Bilirakis and the ombudsman the path they're going to have to take," said Tarpon Springs resident Mary Mosley. "The EPA is an agency that's out of control. . . . They need to reassess what they're supposed to be doing."
After the meeting, EPA ombudsman Bob Martin, who decided in December to investigate the EPA Region 4 office's activities at Stauffer, said he has held similar meetings and has never seen what the EPA officials did Monday.
The 130-acre site, near the Pinellas-Pasco county line, once was home to a phosphorus-processing plant. It is now contaminated by 300,000 cubic yards of toxic soil. EPA's proposed cleanup plan calls for piling the soil up and capping it, but residents have questioned many aspects of the approach.
Bilirakis said in his letter that he had been told of the EPA officials' desire to limit questions from the audience, but he expected that they would remain available to the end of the meeting to answer some questions from the ombudsman and the public.
"As a result of the "walk-out' by EPA officials, however, very little progress was made," Bilirakis said, and his constituents were "denied the information necessary to fully understand and offer comment" on the plan.
Bilirakis said he plans to take up the matter with fellow members of Congress. He said he had been encouraged by the positive tone of a similar meeting on Feb. 12 but that he was "deeply disturbed" by the "apparent change of attitude" on display Monday night.
"To achieve any further progress," he concluded, "at a minimum, I believe a public apology and an explanation from your office are necessary."