EPA Meetings to Address Hometown Superfund Site
The federal Environmental Protection Agency will hold two meetings on Thursday, July 20 to address future plans for the Eastern Diversified Metals Superfund site in Hometown, the Pottsville Republican reports. At 4 p.m., EPA officials will meet with Rush Township supervisors at the township building, followed by a public session from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Hometown fire company.
Read more at Hometown Hazards
EPA says cap it
The federal Environmental Protection Agency plans to begin work on a massive pile of wire insulation in Schuylkill County that contains lead and other hazards this fall, officials said Thursday.
But Rush Township residents, who want the pile that EPA calls ”fluff” gone, are still displeased with the cleanup plan for the former Eastern Diversified Metals site.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b6_1fluffjul21,0,4372513.story
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16949828&BRD=2626&PAG=461&dept_id=532624&rfi=6
EPA Forces Hometown to Live With Toxic ‘Fluff’
The Environmental Protection Agency held two meetings in Hometown yesterday to announce its final plan for dealing with the Eastern Diversified Metals Superfund site: The agency will allow the 350 million pounds of toxic polyvinyl chloride “fluff” left behind by a metal reclamation facility to remain on the bare earth and cover it with plastic sheeting, dirt and grass–thus creating a permanent, unlined landfill for lead, PCBs and dioxin near the northernmost headwaters of the Schuylkill River.
Read more from Hometown Hazards http://www.hometownhazards.com/2006/07/epa-forces-hometown-to-live-with-toxic.html
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16973473&BRD=2626&PAG=461&dept_id=530483&rfi=6
REPUBLICAN and Herald
07/27/2006
EPA and DEP protect polluters, not people
To the Editor:
Here are my thoughts on the July 20 meeting with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in regard to the cleanup of the “fluff” pile at the Eastern Diversified Metals’ site in Hometown.
First, the respective agencies sent low-level bureaucrats to incur the wrath of the community members. At the same time, the real decision makers for these environmental agencies were dining on shrimp cocktails in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.
Second, any rational decision maker would ask two questions about the cleanup of the Superfund site.
The first question would be: What is the best method to eliminate the toxic hazard? After the first question is answered, the second question would be: What is the most cost-effective way to perform the best method?
However, the EPA and the DEP decided not to follow this simple, common sense two-step process. Instead, the decision makers at these environmental agencies asked: What is the cheapest way to address the problem?
The reason why the environmental agencies decided on the cheapest way to address the problem was to save Nassau Metals the greatest amount of money.
According to the EPA, Nassau Metals was a subsidiary of AT&T, which subsequently became Lucent Technologies.
Forget the health of the people who live adjacent to the toxic pile; it is the cost to Nassau Metals that is most important to our environmental agencies.
Furthermore, the EPA doesn’t even use the name Nassau Metals in its literature. At the meeting, the EPA passed out literature referring to the Potentially Responsible Parties, never naming Nassau Metals.
I am tired of referring to the EPA and the DEP as environmental agencies because they are not. They are industry agencies. Their job is to protect corporate and industrial polluters. Their names should be changed to the U.S. Industry Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Industry Protection.
Third, there is no reason why the citizens of Hometown should trust anything that DEP has to say. The DEP said it was confident that capping the fluff pile would protect the health of the citizens exposed to the toxic substances from the hazardous site. They asked the citizens to trust the agency.
Remember that the DEP, then the Department of Environmental Resources, granted a permit to Eastern Diversified Metals to operate the toxic chemical-generating facility. The DEP then inspected Eastern Diversified Metals on a regular basis and allowed the company to continue generating toxic substances at the facility for 11 years.
If anything, the DEP was a co-conspirator with Eastern Diversified Metals in the creation of the Superfund site. Now, DEP wants us to believe that it knows how to best clean up the hazardous mess at the site that it helped create.
Finally, adjacent land owners and other people who are exposed to the toxic substances from the hazardous site should consider consulting with an attorney for possible legal action for chemical trespass.
Dante Picciano
Army for a
Clean Environment Inc.
Tamaqua