Rep. Mike Bilirakis says he's "not thrilled" at the cleanup method selected and wants precautions.
By RICHARD DANIELSON
Published June 27, 2004
TARPON SPRINGS - Many people still don't like the plan for cleaning up toxic soil at the site of the former Stauffer Chemical phosphorus-processing plant.
And, because of past mistakes and public relations gaffes, many people don't trust the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do its job and protect the environment around the Stauffer property.
Increasingly, however, it appears that officials are going forward with the Stauffer cleanup plan they've been proposing for years. If so, then local and federal officials say the EPA and Stauffer Management Co. should take careful steps to follow a set of new recommendations on how to do the job right.
That, at least, was the conclusion reached by the sponsor of a Saturday town meeting regarding the Stauffer plan.
"I'm not thrilled about the remedy selected," said U.S. Rep. Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, who organized the 21/2-hour meeting at St. Petersburg College. In particular, Bilirakis said he was not convinced that sinkholes wouldn't prove to be a problem in the future at the Stauffer property.
That's why the congressman wants EPA to be a lot more careful in the future than it has been in the past about making sure that the public is involved, that recommended tests get done and that the EPA's contractors and engineers are properly qualified to do the work.
"I think it's important that promises that have been made and recommendations that have been made are followed to a T," Bilirakis said after the meeting.
From 1947 to 1981, Stauffer operated a phosphorus-processing plant on the 130-acre property, which is bordered by the Anclote River. After the plant closed, tests showed concentrations of toxic substances, heavy metals and carcinogens on the property.
Through the EPA's Superfund program, federal officials and Stauffer executives have long advocated a multistep approach to keeping those pollutants from contaminating surrounding areas or the underground drinking water supply.
Often known as the "mound and cap" approach, the plan calls for the contaminated soil to be piled up. A solidifying agent such as Portland cement would be added to the soil to harden it and chemically lock the pollutants in place. Then a watertight cap would be installed over the site to prevent rain from washing through the soil and flushing contaminants into the groundwater below.
For just as long, local critics have worried that a sinkhole could open up on the Stauffer property. That, they say, could allow pollution to plunge into and contaminate the Floridan Aquifer, which supplies Tampa Bay with most of its drinking water.
Four years ago, public concerns pushed EPA to delay its cleanup plans while three more studies were done of the Stauffer site and the proposed plan.
One was a geophysical study to gauge the risk of sinkholes at the property. The second was a groundwater study to determine existing underground water conditions, such as how water flows through the property and how deep the pollution has gone. The third was a study on whether the tainted soil could be hardened into a stable mass that holds in chemicals reliably.
In a report released early this month, acting EPA ombudsman Paul McKechnie said he found no reason in those studies to stop the mound and cap plan.
"I am not able to say that we do not support the remedy," McKechnie told the 75 or so residents at Saturday's meeting.
But McKechnie emphasized that EPA and Stauffer need to take precautions as they go forward. Those precautions include not piling up polluted material where an old sinkhole exists, monitoring work as it proceeds and being careful not to cause excessive vibration on the property.
McKechnie also said EPA officials "made a number of poor judgments in the early stages of this project" and did not follow the agency's own requirements for involving the public in the process. Residents, he said, "expected and probably did deserve more" from the EPA.
"That is unacceptable, clearly," he said.
In response, two EPA officials responsible for the cleanup said they would do better in the future.
"You've been heard," said Franklin Hill, a high-ranking Superfund program official for the southeastern United States.
As a result of the tests, EPA officials know a lot more about the site than they ever did before.
"This is an implementable remedy, and you will be happy with it," Hill said.
Representatives of the three companies that did the new studies said they found no problems that justified abandoning the mound and cap plan.
The geophysical study, for example, used carbon-dating tests to determine that an old sinkhole on the eastern edge of the property opened up 40,000 to 44,000 years ago. When the plant was operating, there were railroad tracks and piles of material on that area.
"This is a stable condition," said Lynn Yuhr, vice president and general manager of Technos, the Miami company that did the geophysical study. "It is not suddenly going to collapse in on itself."
That study found that 92 percent of the site had a layer of sandy clay or clay-like sand underneath that prevents groundwater near the surface from seeping down into the deep aquifer. The 8 percent that lacks the layer is around the old sinkhole.
That study did not find large quantities of buried metal drums long rumored to be on the site. If anything, Yuhr said, the drums might have corroded away.
Reaction to the new tests and EPA's current plans was mixed.
Bilirakis, for one, was skeptical about the focus of the tests.
"It seemed to me, quite frankly, like all the testing was geared to see if the (proposed plan) worked," he said. "I'm not sure if we even took a look to see if there are any (other) options or alternatives to do all this."
But Jon Wilson, a resident of the upscale Meyer's Cove neighborhood just west of Stauffer, said he had heard enough.
"The solution that has been presented, at least to me, seems reasonable and should be implemented as quickly as possible," said Wilson, a retired labor relations negotiator. "This has been hanging over our heads for at least 10 years."
Others remained leery of the tests, the plan, or both.
"You can't trust these bogus studies," said Mary Mosley, a longtime activist and critic of the plan.
R. Kevin Pegg, a technical adviser to a local group that monitors the plan, cited test data from one study and questioned whether the hardened material would remain stable in the ground for long. "As far as I'm concerned, we don't have the information right now to show that the remedy will work," he said.
But a Pinellas County Health Department official said the tests were "very worthwhile."
D. Michael Flanery praised the technical review committee assembled to scrutinize and comment on the new studies. He said the members of the committee, such as University of South Florida geology professor and sinkhole expert Mark Stewart, were independent and knowledgeable enough to raise questions that needed to be asked.
"We do not disagree with this solution," said Flanery, director of the Health Department's environmental engineering division.
What's more, he said, the new tests establish what the conditions are at Stauffer now. That will make it easier to monitor the property and how the cleanup works in the future.
"At least now you can do science on it instead of doing "sounds good' on it," he said.
STAUFFER CLEANUP
WHAT'S NEW: A new round of studies on the long-proposed cleanup plan for the Stauffer Superfund site has been accepted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's top internal watchdog official.
WHAT IT MEANS: That official has concluded that there's no reason to think that the so-called "mound and cap" plan won't protect human health and the environment. But he recommends doing more tests as the project proceeds and carefully selecting the engineers and contractors who do the work.
WHAT'S NEXT: EPA officials say they plan to spend the next year designing the project in detail. Once the design is done, construction can begin. That work is expected to take a year.
