PUBLIC EPA HEARINGIN RE: ALADDIN PLATING SITE

TRANSCRIPT

OP

PROCEEDINGS

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i _y DATE TAKEN: THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 1993

LOCATION TAKEN: CHINCHILLA FIRE COMPANYCHINCHILLA, PA 18410

NORTHEAST REPORTING SERVICES, INC.COMPUTERIZED TRANSCRIPTION

Electric Bldg. P.O. Box 2281Suite 103 Wilkes-Barre, PA 18703

507 Linden St. (717)822-9956 113 South Main St.Scranton, PA 18503 Old Forge, PA 18518

(717) 342-3575 Hazleton (?") 457-1230(Conference Room) (717)454-0890 (Conference Room)

A P P E A R A N C E S :

GREGORY D. HAMREMEDIAL PROJECT MANAGERU.S. EPA - REGION III341 CHESTNUT BUILDING (3HW22)PHILADELPHIA, PA 19107

LISA M. BROWNCOUMMUNIT.Y RELATIONS COORDINATORU.S. EPA - REGION III841 CHESTNUT BUILDING (3EA21)PHILADELPHIA, PA 19107

Also Present:

FRANCIS BURNS, SECTION CHIEFEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA REMEDIAL SECTIONHAZARDOUS WASTE, MANAGEMENT DIVISION

AL PETERSON, MANAGEREPA SUPERFUND COMMUNITY RELATIONS

AR500057

1 MS. BROWN: My name is Lisa.

2 I'm from the Environmental Protection

3 Agency. I'm the community relations

4 coordinator for the Aladdin Plating Site.

5 Tonight we're here to discuss

6 the proposed plan for the ground water

7 clean up. We have gone and done

8 scientific investigations. We've done

9 sampling, we've gotten the test results

10 back, and now we've gotten to the point

11 where we've come up with a couple

12 different designs. In the past we've done

13 soil clean-ups. We've taken care of the

14 contamination problem, so there's no

15 further contaminates.

16 Tonight we have a

17 stenographer with us and a public

18 commentary right now, and that means that

19 your comments go into a record of

20 responsiveness, which will affect'.the

21 public commentary and the record of

22 decision. There is an address -- if you

23 do not care to comment tonight, there's an

24 address where you can send comments to;

25 and that is to Greg Ham, Remedial Project

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1 Manager, from Philadelphia. Greg is

2 seated right here to my right, and the

3 public comment period runs to September 5.

4 Should you have any further

5 questions aside from the things that we

6 cover tonight, I can be reached in

7 Philadelphia at this phone number; and our

8 addresses and phone numbers are listed on

9 page 11 of the proposed plan.

10 We will make reference to a

11 couple of technical documents which have

12 already been discussed, and I talked about

13 them before; and they're available here in^

14 the different locations. One is at the

15 Scott Township Municipal Buidling, and the

16 other is at the South Abington Township

17 Building.

18 Greg will be talking about

19 the different proposed actions and the. ..

20 EPA's preferred alternatives in the ground

21 water situation. We ask that you hold

22 your comments and your questions to the

23 very end of this presentation. What Greg

24 will be talking about you'll have an

25 opportunity to comment at the commentary \^

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period; £t the end or mail it into him. We

also have in our panel Fran Burns, who is

the section chief of the Eastern Hazardous

Waste Division of the EPA. And Paul Panek

from the Pennsylvania Department of

Environmental Resources. With that I'd

like turn the meeting over to Greg.

MR. BAM: As Lisa said, we've

completed a remedial investigation

feasibility study at the Aladdin site and

a proposed plan, which is what we're

proposing as the recommended alternative

for the site. We will soon be issuing a

record of decision which will describe

what alternative we chose for the site and

explain that decision and respond to the

comments that are raised tonight and/or

any written comments that we receive

during the public comment period.

The preferred alternative

that we have recommended in the plan is

institutional controls with ground water

monitoring* and institutional controls

consists of deed restrictions just on the

property where the electroplating

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—I 1 operation existed previously. Those

2 restrictions would prevent any kind of .

3 excavation or well drilling on that

4 property which would go through the area

5 of contamination.

6 We would also institute a

7 ground water monitoring program that would

8 last for 30 years to keep track of the

9 contamination and to make sure we know if

10 it does start to migrate; and if so, how

11 fast. This would so include

12 installation of two new monitoring wells

13 on the site to help us track the J

14 contamination* and the monitoring would

15 consist — We would monitor wells in the

16 shallow zone, the intermediate zone, and

17 the bedrock zone, which is where the

18 drinking water wells in the area are

19 located.

20 We are also recommending that

21 a state requirement to clean up to

22 background levels be waived because we

23 don't believe that the technology that

24 exists today would be able to achieve that

25 level of cleaning up to background.

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1 • I'd like to talk a little bit

2 about the history of the site. The site

3 of Aladdin was an electroplating operation

4 right on the border of Scott and South

5 Abington Townships, and this is the

6 original electroplating building itself.

7 These were two surface impoundments that

8 were used for disposal of liquid waste.

9 That operated from in the 1940's until

10 1982, when a fire occurred at the

11 facility. All the liquid wastes were

12 disposed of in these two lagoons until

13 1974, when the owner was ordered to close

14 down and fill them in by the Pennsylvania

15 Department of Environmental Resources. We

16 believe after that time instead of

17 disposing of the waste in the lagoons, the

18 waste was just injected into the ground

19 underneath the electroplating building

20 here.21 After the fire, the EPA came

22 in and did an emergency removal and

23 assessment and determined there were still

24 wastes in the building that needed to be

25 removed to prevent a health endangerment

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<—| 1 to the public health. So removal action

2 was initiated, and all the electroplating—

3 wastes were removed from the site; and the

4 building itself was demolished.

5 I have some slides here that

6 show that. This i.s a picture of the

7 facility just after we started the removal

8 action. We put up a security fence around

9 it to make sure nobody got into the site,

10 to prevent anybody from being exposed to

11 the hazardous wastes in there.

12 This is a close-up shot of

13 the building. You can see the building ,

14 was in quite bad shape. There were wastes

15 throughout the buildings and drums and

16 vats.

17 This is after the building

13 had been demolished, and we were removing

19 the building itself from the site.

20 This was a trenching

21 operation in the area that the former

22 lagoons were to see how deep the

23 contamination was and how far that

24 extended down just to gather information

25 on that. ^^

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; After the removal, the site

was listed on the National Priorities list

in July of 1987; and then we initiated a .

remedial action that consisted of removing

all the contaminated soil from the site.

The sampling during the removal had

indicated that there was extensive surface

contamination; so we initiated the

remedial action, and we removed just under

30 thousand cubic yards of chromium contaminated.soil /

The primary contaminate that

had been found in the soil was chromium

from the operation. This diagram shows

the extent. The dotted line shows the

extent of the areas that were excavated

and where the contaminated soil was

removed; again, it shows the area where

the electroplating building and the

surface impoundments were.

And after the removal, we

replaced the soil that had been removed

with clean fill and planted trees and

grass in those areas. I have some

additional slides showing that operation.

This is a slide showing the

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actual removal operation with the

excavation of the soil being loaded into

trucks and shipped off-site. The soil was

shipped to two different facilities that

were approved for disposal of contaminated

soil.

This shows the excavation in

the area where the electroplating building

was. And at this point, it's about six toi

eight feet deep; and we did go down to

about 15 feet in that location. The rest

of the area was between one and three feet

deep, the excavation throughout rest of

the area.

This shows the backfilling

operation where we were bringing in clean

fill and restoring the site to its

original contours.

And this is replanting. You

can see there were some trees that were

planted throughout the open area of the

site.

And, finally, this is two

shots here of what the site looks like.

These were taken this past summer. This

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shows pretty much what it looks like

today.

Finally, just one more shot.

This was when we installed some wells on

the site. That was a drilling rig that

was used; and if we do install additional

wells, we will go through this operation

again on the site.

MS. BROWNt Greg and I were

out today on the site. We took a brief

tour before this particular meeting and

representives from Senator Wofford and

Senator Specter joined us, and they have

shown an interest in the past and will

show interest in the future with this

particular site. The regrowth is coming

along very well.

HR. HAMt After we completed

the soil removal operation, our next step

was to.investigate the ground water,

which, again, we had been aware of. We

had installed some wells during the

removal operation. So once the soil was

cleaned up, we went back and did a

remedial investigation feasibility study

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1 of the ground water situation. And that's

2 what we're here tonight to explain, what ,

3 we did and what our findings were from

4 that.

5 The remedial investigation

6 objectives were to determine the quality

7 of the ground water on and off the site••

8 and the extent of the ground water

9 contamination, to assess the current and

10 future risk to the human health and the

11 environment that was posed by that

12 contamination, to evaluate potential

13 remediation alternatives to decide that

14 some clean-up action was necessary, then

15 also to determine the effectiveness of the

16 soil clean up to make sure we got all the

17 soil and met our clean-up objectives from

13 that operation.

19 During our remedial

20 investigation, we took 78 residential well

21 samples, 102 monitoring well samples, 58

22 soil samples, and 16 surface water and

23 sediment samples. That was in a total of

24 four rounds of sampling. We completed

25 that report in January of 1993, and that's '"~

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the basis for what we're doing today and

the basis for our proposed plan of

recommendation.

Our findings from that were

that the soil removal was effective. Out

of the 58 samples, only two of those were

higher than the clean-up levels that we

had set, which was 50 parts per million.

And those two were both at five and ten

feet below ground in the area of the

former electroplating building. So it's

well below the surface, and in an area

where it probably could not have been of

harm to anybody, unless they happen to

excavate into that area. But even at —

the levels were, one was just under a

hundred; the other was over a hundred,

close to 200. But those were still not --

one exposure to that level would not

create any hazard.

The primary area of

contamination that we identified was in

the very shallow ground water from in this

area. The dotted line here, that is the

boundry of the property on which the

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1 electroplating facility was located. That

2 is also the area within which we would ,

3 apply the deed restrictions. We do not

4 intend to try to apply any deed

5 restrictions outside of that area.

6 That is the extent of the

7 contamination that we've identified in the

8 shallow zone, and we estimate this is

9 approximately 750 feet across; and at it's

10 widest point, it's 300 to 350 feet. The

11 levels in this area immediately under the

12 building, the former building, are

13 approximately 200 parts per million. And

14 in this area it's approximately 300 parts

15 per million. The outside ring is,

16 basically, the extent of contamination

17 that we've identified so far. Everything

18 outside of that we have not found any

19 contamination in the shallow zone.

20 In this area there are no

21 drinking water wells within this area, and

22 the shallow zone is not usable as a water

23 supply. There's not enough water in there

24 to provide enough volume for a well; and

25 even when we sample the wells in this x -x/

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area, they tended to run dry before we

could -- We purged three volumes of water

out of the well before we sampled it, and

many of these ran dry before we even got

three volumes.

This shows what we believe to

be the depth of contamination. This,

again, it's down between 10 and 20 feet

under the area of the building. We

believe that the water level is typically

around five feet here; sor basically, this

area would be the level of where the

contamination exists because the water

doesn't come right up to the surface.

There shouldn't be any

problem with exposure to that water on the

surface. This would also be the area of

where we want to put in deed restrictions

to keep anybody of putting in a well right

through the middle of that which might

allow that contamination to flow down

through the well if it wasn't properly

installed; or for the same thing, to

prevent an excavation into this area which

might allow rain water or surface water to

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1 flow in here and increase the movement of

2 that water in this area. ,

3 This line here represents

4 approximately where the bedrock is

5 underneath the site. This is not to

6 scale. This would actually be a much more

7 gentle slope because this is condensed to

8 fit onto this.

9 Essentially under the site it

10 ranges from more than 80 feet deep to

11 under the building itself it's close to

12 140 feet deep. And this would be, I

13 think, the northeast. The bedrock is even

14 deeper, and drinking water is essentially

15 drawn from the bedrock aquifer, which is

16 below this line here.

17 So there's an extensive

18 overburden here which cosists of glacial

19 till material, which is very dense

20 material. And it has a very low

21 permeability. So the water, if it moves

22 at all in this area, moves very slowly;

23 and also this whole area would not be

24 suitable to supply water because it has

25 such slow water movement and a low volume ^

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of water that would be produced from that

area.

We had some additional wells

in this intermediate zone. Many of them

went dry, so there's a very low volume of

water in there. We did find a few

positive results of chromium in that area.

Most of that was total chromium. Only one

had hexavalent chromium. Most of the

levels were below the 71 parts per billion

or lower so that the levels in here —

There were just a few samples where we

found chromium, and the levels were very

low in that area. in the bedrock aquifer

we took 78 samples; and of those* only

five had any chromium at all; and all

those levels were less than five parts per

billion. They were all total chromium.

There was not hexavalent chromium.

Chromium is a naturally

occurring substance; and at those levels,

we don't believe it's related to the site.

It's difficult to know for certain. And*

again, we sampled the surface water and

sediment; and we didn't find any chromium

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1 anywhere on the site in either surface

2 water or sediments in the area. /

3 Based on the information that

4 we collected during the remedial

5 investigation, we did a risk assessment on

6 the information.

7 Chromium comes in two forms.

8 There's trivalent and hexavalent.

9 Hexavalent is more toxic and mobile in

10 ground water. Trivalent is not nearly as

11 toxic and really doesn't create health

12 problems. The concern with trivalent is

13 that it can be converted to hexavalent J

14 chromium, which, again* is the one to be

15 concerned about for health concerns. Its

16 primary health effect is kidney failure at

17 levels above the MCL. That would be the

18 concern. The MCL being the Maximum

19 contaminate limit that's allowed in public

20 drinking water supplies for chromium is

21 100 parts per billion.

22 So we did an evaluation of .

23 all the data we found today, sampling that

24 we did in the existing residential wells.

25 We looked at the results that we found ^^

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there. We also estimated .future levels

that we would find in an on-site drinking

well. So if somebody put a well on the

site down into the bedrock aquifer, we

estimated what the chromium levels would

be in that well in the future and what

effect that would have on people.

We did modeling of that, and

the modeling showed it would be two

thousand years before the chromium would

reach from the area of contamination to

the bedrock aquifer. I don't think any of

us would put great faith in the number of

two thousand years. What it indicates is

that it would be a very long time before

that contamination would reach the areas

that are being used for drinking water

wells.

Based on that modeling

information, we calculated hazardous

indexes for the site. Chromium is not

carcinogenic through the ingestion route.

It can be carcinogenic if you're inhaling

the dust. That's not a problem at this

site.. The only concern is the

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1 noncarcinogenic health effects which is

2 the effect on the kidneys.

3 In order to estimate that, we

4 calculated what's called hazard indexes;.

5 and an index of one or higher is a level

6 that we would be concerned about. And the

7 hazard indexes for this site we calculated

8 under a number of different scenarios for

9 both children and adults. The hazard

10 indexes were all well below one by more

11 than an order of magnitude.

12 So based on that information,

13 we again, because we believe that

14 the risk presented by the site as it

15 exists today is within normal limits, we

16 have recommended the institutional

17 controls with the ground water monitoring

18 method alternative.

19 We did screen six

20 alternatives in the feasibility study for

21 this site. Those alternatives were: No

22 Action with ground water monitoring, The

23 Institutional Controls with ground water

24 monitoring, Electro-kinetic Extraction

25 with both off-site disposal and on-site

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disposal '*'• Chemical Bar rier's, r and Chemical

Stabilization.

The No Action alternative is

always evaluated with every feasibility

study we do. That's evaluated as a

baseline to compare the other alternatives

with. We look at what would happen if we

took no action and compare that with the

different alternatives.

The Institutional Controls,

again, would apply deed restrictions just

on the property that the electroplating

facility was located on, and we would also

monitor the ground water for 30 years.

Electro-kinetic Extraction is

a technique that's being developed. It

consists of installing opposing wells and

applying opposite -electrical charges to

those wells. And what happens is the

contaminates in the soil and in the ground

water have a charge, and they're drawn by

the electrical charge into the well where

they can be pumped out and taken off-site

for treatment or treated on-site.

We looked at this altenative

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1 use at Aladdin. But, unfortunately, this

2 works well with trivalent chromium. But

3 because most, of the contamination in the

4 ground water in the shallow zone at

5 Aladdin is hexavalent, it has a negative

6 charge. Trivalent has a positive charge,

7 so it moves towards the cathode. The

8 hexavalent has a negative charge, so it

9 would tend to flow in the opposite

10 direction. Because you have the water

11 flowing, this also induces water flow; and

12 that flow is towards the cathode. So the

13 hexavalent is fighting against the flow,

14 and that significantly reduces the

15 effectiveness of this method. So we don't

16 think that it would be effective in

17 obtaining the background requirements or

18 significantly reducing the levels from the

19 site.

20 And the two differences

21 between the alternatives are, basically,

22 with one you pump the contamination out

23 and treat it on-site, and then discharge

24 it to a local stream. Or the off-site

25 altenative would be to pump the water, put

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it in a tank truck, and take it off-site

for disposal

The Chemical Barrier method

consists of installing two trenches just

downgradient of the areas of highest

contamination and mixing in iron-bearing

materials into the soil down to the depth

of the contamination, which would be 15 to

20 feet. Iron tends to convert hexavalent

chromium to trivalent chromium, and

trivalent is less moveable and binds up in

the soil. And so it would be bound up,

and the soil would not migrate with any

ground water.

Our concern with this method

is, for one thing, because of the very

slow movement of this water in this area,

it would take many years for that,method

to be effective. In fact, some of the

ground water might not ever flow through

the barrier. Also, some water may stay

underneath because there is sometimes

vertical flow of ground water. So it

might move underneath the barrier; and,

therefore, would not be treated by that.

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1 In addition, that method is

2 chemically reversible if the conditions in

3 the soil change or if there are materials

4 in the soil that cause that reaction to be

5 reversed, then you can have hexavalent

6 chromium returning and being dissolved

7 back into the ground water.

8 The final method that we

9 looked at is the Chemical Stabilization

10 method. That's a similar method to the

11 barrier method except that instead of just

12 two trenches, we would excavate

13 essentially the areas where the building

14 and the two lagoons exsisted and those are

15 the areas of the highest contamination.

16 And we would mix the iron barrier into the

17 soil down to 15 to 20 feet depth in those

18 areas. Our concern with that is this

19 would again cause a disruption of the

20 site* a lot of construction activity.

21 It's also potentially chemically

22 reversible. So that would be a concern

23 for that method.

24 And* again, we're not sure

25 how effective these methods are. Most of

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the information we have is from the lab

studies. These methods have really not

been used in the field for treating a

hexavalent chromium in a situation such as

this.

So we evaluated these six

alternatives based on the nine criteria

that are established in the National

Contingency Plan, which are the

regulations that implement Superfund.

Based on that evaluation, we're

recommending the altenative number two,

which is the Institutional Controls with

long-term ground water monitoring for the

site.

MS. BROWN: Before we open

this up for questions, I just want to ask

that you speak loud- enough so that our

stenographer can hear you. You do not

have to state your name for the record

because the way the proposed commentary

works is that your comments will just go

into a general document. The questions

that you do bring up during the public

comment period will be answered by us.

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1 It's really important that we hear your

2 questions and comments; and with that, the

3 first question.

4 RESIDENT: My name is Bd. I

5 live adjoining the property. I found none

6 of the proposed solutions acceptable. I

7 think this is a bald-faced attempt to

8 cover an error in judgment that was made

9 on the original excavation.

10 Instead of pursuing the

11 source of the contamination when they were

12 down 14 or 15 feet, it was simply

13 backfilled and left now for somebody else-

14 to pick up the problem. By that, I mean

15 the remedies proposed. Your solutions are

16 a very minimal cost to the EPA, but the

17 adjoining property owners are affected by

18 competing in land values through zoning

19 and deed restrictions.

20 This is totally unacceptable.

21 Your proposals three, four, and six, are

22 maybe solutions. Maybe they'll work* and

23 maybe they won't. I think you should go

24 back to something more positive than what

25 you have in those solutions.

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1 MS. BROWNs Are we talking

2 about deed restrictions?

3 MR. HAH: The deed

4 restrictions would be applied just on the

5 original property. So, as far as the deed

6 restrictions, I'm not sure that that would

7 affect your property. Are you concerned

8 more about the potentioal of being --

9 RESIDENTS Absolutely. Put

10 yourself in the situation of buying the

11 property. EPA'S got the property right

12 next to a restricted zone. Are you going

13 to pay full price?

14 MR. HAMs The restrictions

15 are just to prevent excavation on their

16 property. I'm not sure how much of an

17 affect that would have your property.

18 RESIDENTS Mrs. Cadman

19 (Phonetic) is a real estate agent. Ask

20 her.

21 RESIDENTS I can tell you it

22 will cause a lot of property loss value.

23 When you first came in here* we understood

24 you were going to come in and identify the

25 problem and clean it up. You spent 24

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1 million dollars, and today we have a

2 problem. To me that says you did a sloppy

3 job. Now you come back and you offer us

4 alternatives that are not going to come in

5 identify the problem and clean it up. We

6 want the problem identified, and we want

7 you to clean it up.

8 When the problem first came

9 to your attention back when there was a

10 leakage there and the neighboring property

11 owners said to you, "Where is that seepage

12 coming from?" You didn't want to hear

13 about it. 24 million dollars later, you

14 fill that hole up. Now the problem is

15 here. I'm going to ask you, would you put

16 the transparency up that shows the

17 contamination at five feet down.

18 MS. BROWN: One of the things

19 that I can tell you is the way that we

20 work the clean up is we work from the top

21 of the soil down. We've done the

22 excavation with fill has been all clean

23 fill. So the source has been taken away

24 for the contamination, all the

25 contamination.

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1 , RESIDENT: Would you look at

2 the transparency that you put up. You're

3 telling me the contamination as I'm

4 looking at it here starts from five feet

5 down and then goes down. Where is that

6 contamination coming from?

7 MR. HAM: Let me go back.

8 Originally the excavation was based on the

9 levels in the soil. So we tested -- We

10 would dig a foot, test underneath that.

11 If there was still contamination, we would

12 continue to dig. We did extensive soil

13 testing as we did the excavation, and we

14 dug down until the levels were below 50

15 parts per million in the soil.

16 We did not do water testing

17 at that time. We did not expect to find a

18 significant ground water problem. We knew

19 that there was ground water contamination

20 from when we put the wells in. So we knew

21 there was some contaminated well water.

22 But once we had come to the soil clean up

23 and removed the soil, we did not expect to

24 find a significant ground water

25 contamination underneath that.

AR50008I*

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1 We don't know a hundred

2 percent where that came from. Obviously,

3 we can't see what's under there. We

4 believe this was probably ground water

5 just outside the excavation area, and then

6 moved back into the area where we put in

7 the fill. Even before we did the soil

8 clean up, we recognized that we were going

9 to have to come back and look at the

10 ground water, do a study, and find out how

11 extensive the problem was.

12 We did not expect to end our

13 efforts after the soil clean up. We had

14 always intended to come back to the second

15 operable unit. It's up into what is a

16 managable project. We considered the soil

17 contamination as a first step* and we

13 would come back and find out how much of a

19 problem the ground water was and deal with

20 that. In hindsight, if we'd have known

21 that we probably would have put iron-bearing

22 materials into the fill as backfill with the

23 soil that we used. Perhaps that would have

24 taken care of the problem.

25 As I said, we didn't expect

31

rn 1 to have the contamination at this level.

2 It is still that very limited area; and

3 based on our testing, we don't think it's

4 moving. The plant operated for 35 years

5 with disposal of liquid wastes into these

6 areas, and this is as far as it has

7 gotten. There is no source anymore.

8 There's not a new source of chromium being

9 put into the ground. So we don't expect

10 it to move very far.

11 RESIDENTS Your expectations

12 have not held up when one started here and

13 moved considerably.

14 MR. BURNS: I think you bring

15 up a good point with the original

16 excavation. We thought it was going to be

17 limited to a certain area. When we found

18 that it went further, we didn't stop. We

19 continued and moved probably twice as much

20 soil as we were going to.

21 I think what we see here is

22 we're looking at a situation now if I

23 could read you what typically happens with

24 ground water is that people put in a pump

25 and treating system. In other words, we

AR50UU86

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1 put in wells to pump the ground water out

2 and treat it. This is a very unusual

3 situation. We didn't expect to see any

4 kind of contamination at all because we

5 felt we did a very thorough job of the

6 source removal. This isn't typical ground

7 water. For example, you couldn't use it•*

8 as drinking water because there's just not

9 enough water there. You couldn't pump it

10 because we can't even get enough water for

11 a sample.

12 So really what we're looking

13 at is residual contamination that hasn't

14 moved for 30 years. We don't expect it to

15 move. We really can't use it for anything

16 and our traditional methods of treating

17 this water — It's just not enough water

13 to deal with. I think that's why Greg

19 went through all the different

20 alternatives that we looked at to see if

21 they would work in this particular

22 situation. Usually we have ground

23 water — one of the things that works to

24 our advantage is that it does move. It

25 will move into a well, or it will move v-X

AR500087

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1 vertically or horizontally* So you can

2 set up some sort of collection.

3 Typically, if this was a

4 shallow ground water aquifer that we see

5 on other sites, it will move more

6 horizontally than vertically because the

7 water is about 15 or 20 feet deep. As the••

8 . water moves into trenches, we get rid of

9 it. What's interesting in this that you

10 see on the overhead, it's really like —

11 It's not even a continuous plume. It's

12 more like spots, and those spots coincide

13 with where the electroplating building was

14 and where the actual lagoons were. It's

15 not what we would call a typical ground

16 water plume because usually that's one

17 continuous contaminated plume. We

18 actually have two hot spots.

19 So because it is so stable

20 and the alternatives we look at,

21 basically* we feel we have little benefit

22 and probably a lot of temporary

23 inconveniences to the residents similar to

24 what happened when we were doing the

25 source removal. We felt that the best

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thing to do was continuous monitoring and

our feeling is if it hasn't moved in 30

years, we're not going see any movement;

and, actually, what we're seeing is

natural attenuation.

RESIDENT: Wasn't it also

EPA's original position when we were up

there on the first days of the clean up

that the water would not move when the

residents insisted testing be done on that

part of the property? Initially* you were

reluctant to do the testing. When testing

was conducted and completed, it showed

that the water moved and chemicals moved;

and the back part of the property hadn't

been cleaned up.

MR. BURNS: This is the

surface water?

RESIDENT: That's correct.

MR. BURNSs The surface water

moves -- One of the reasons that the

surface water moved so far, so much

further than we thought, again* it is

because of the impermeability. For

example* if this was some kind of soil

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that you would see in Delaware or New

Jersey* you wouldn't see it move so far.

What happened here is that

this soil is so impermeable, so tightly

packed* that it will, instead of going

vertically* it would travel over land, and

it would saturate the more porous topsoil

where the vegetation is broken up. But it

did not get much further down. For

example, as we move further to the site* I

believe our excavation was one or two feet

deep, it just wasn't deep because it

couldn't penetrate.

MR. HAMs It was flowing over

the surface. It was water flowing down

the surface not ground water moving

underneath.

RESIDENTS My name is Pauline.

My property is one of the adjoining

properties. It is true that precipitation

moves the chromium contamination over to

adjoining property; and by the map the

extent of chromium contamination showed at

least two of the adjoining properties were

contaminated as heavily as the lagoon.

AK500090

36

1 MR. HAM: In the ground water

2 or in the soil? .

3 RESIDENCE: The soil

4 contamination.

5 MR. BURNS: Again, how deep

6 was the soil contamination?

7 RESIDENT: I can't tell you.

8 All I know was there was 3.9 and 3.10. It

9 was two of the properties had areas of

10 contamination that were heavily

11 contanimated as the lagoon. I have the

12 map here, which I'll be glad to show you

13 afterwards.V^

14 MR. BURNS: I think we agree

15 on that particular point, and that

16 basically is what we've just discussed is

17 that the lagoon has a lot of liquid in

18 them. There was a lot of liquid in the

19 lagoons. As Greg said, they overflowed.

20 We* re seeing a very

21 concentrated amount of waste from the

22 electroplating outfit. It wasn't diluted.

23 It was very concentrated. When that

24 started overflowing the lagoons and moving

25 into the adjacent soil, it went over in

AR50009I

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1 concentrated amounts.

2 RESIDENCE: Sure the part

3 that was heavily contaminated obviously

4 took it up to a high extent. Right?

5 MR. BURNS: Right. Again,

6 the soil on the top will move some more of

7 the liquid because there you have more

8 porous soil because the vegetation breaks

9 the soil up. What we found is that the

10 soil was one or two feet deep. It wasn't

11 a case of that over land flow pooling

12 somewhere and getting as deep as it did at

13 the actual building, which was further to

14 the north.

15 RESIDENT: What happens when

16 they monitor and you notice that it is

17 moving? Then what's your recommendation?

18 MR. HAM: We would have to

19 come back at that point and re-evaluate

20 these options. We did look for other

21 options. We were not aware of any others

22 that might work in this situation with

23 this type of soil. If it did start to

24 migrate* we would come back and

25 re-evlauate these options. And maybe, at

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that point, some of these options might

have met approval; or we might have more

information on some other method that

might be effective.

RESIDENT: How come you just

couldn't take it out?

MR. HAMs The only way to

take it out would be to excavate that

whole area and just keep throwing the

water out. It would be very extensive.

It would be very difficult to remove

ground water from an area like this. We

would have to put wells every three or

four feet throughout the area and just

keep pumping. It's just very difficult

because* again* that water is not moving.

If we put a well in and start pumping the

well and move it* the water five to ten

feet from that well will move over to the

well.

RBSIDBNT: It has to be

coming from somewhere.

MR. HAH: I believe it's just

basically a pocket of water. It's just

sitting there.

AR5UU093

39

1 RESIDENTS How big an area

2 are we talking about?

3 MR. HAMs The area is

4 approximately 750 feet in length.

5 RESIDENTS The contanimation

6 is still in that gigantic area?

7 MR. HAM: Based on the

8 sampling we did, the extent of the

9 contamination is 750 feet in length; and,

10 at it's widest, about 350 feet.

11 RESIDENTS That hole is more

12 than 750 feet long at the surface?

13 MR. HAMs The hole that's

14 shown, yes.

15 RESIDENTS That whole area is

16 contanimated?

17 MR. HAMs The original

18 property is 6.2 acres. You can see not

19 quite all of that is contaminated. The

20 two outer rings here are within drinking

21 water level. It's really just the two

22 circles in the center of the two areas

23 that were considered highly contaminated.

24 You could drink the water that's in the

25 outer ring.

AR500091*

40

1 RESIDENT: If you're a person

2 and you're thinking of moving to this area

3 and you're dealing with somebody, you

4 can't say that we have a very clean

5 environment. That's a fact.

6 MR. HAM: I think if you're

7 outside of that property.•>

8 RESIDENTS Outside of that?

9 There's a lunatic up there that caused all

10 of these problems, which personally should

11 be paying in•some criminal way. I know

12 it's not your legal jurisdiction.

13 RESIDENT: I think you ought

14 to address it. I asked you about that

15 this afternoon. Several of the residents

16 have asked about the liability of the

17 present property owner who owned that

18 property and who owned the plants. Tell

19 us what the plans are on that, what is the

20 record decision, and what the legal

21 resources are.

22 MR. HAM: We do have a lien

23 on that property.

24 RESIDENT: Which means

25 nothing. That piece of property happens

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to have <v>ety little value. -rYou can lien

that. It doesn't mean a darn thing.

MR. HAM: At this point, we

have people that look into the financial

resources, and we make determinations on

whether or not we can recover money from

that. We do that in every case. I'm not

directly involved in that. We can take the

comment back to the office and get a

response.

RESIDENT: All you people up

there, I don't view you as the enemies. I

know you're trying to help the situation,

but you got to realize I got some kids.

I'm sure these people have kids or just

themselves, whatever the case may be.

Now, as the thought, there's still

contamination. That's a fact that exists.

Whether it migrates or not* it's still

there. Who knows what happens to nature.

Nobody knows the answer to that. You have

a lot of experience in that, and I don't.

I also know the word

contamination is one hundred meters from

where the hell I live. That's a problem

AR500096

42

1 for me, and I know it's a problem for

2 anybody. What we need is to see this

3 thing being packed up. I have no idea how

4 much money is involved to get this thing

5 totally done. You can put a well every

6 two, three feet for 750 yards or feet or

7 whatever the hell you're talking about

3 there.

9 I don't understand it,

10 personally. It just seems to me that to

11 do a job right and to get this thing

12 cleaned up so we can live a life and we

13 can say that we now live in a clean

14 environment — I think at this point,

15 you're saying* I think we're all saying,

16 we don't have that. We don't have that.

17 Like I said, put yourself in

18 our shoes. That's the key of this whole

19 thing here, for you folks, your families,

20 or whatever your situation is, you have to

21 put yourself in that position to really

22 think about this. Everything is totally

23 involved to get this thing

24 contamination-free. We know it's there.

25 It's there, and there's a lot of work to

AR500097

43

1 be done.' 5

2 MS. BROWN: We share your

concerns, the concerns of the people's

health and environment and the ones the

EPA has as well. However, we did go

through a lot of evaluations as far as

7 coming to this preferred alternative.

8 This was not something that was made this

morning. Greg has told you that he could

10 elaborate more on the evaluation at this

11 point.

12 RESIDENT: My name is Joe. I

13 just work in the area. I went to the job

14 site. I was aware that there was some

15 seepage coming out of pits, and that

16 seepage was a red colored water; and I

17 asked about the potential of that being

18 contanimated because of its color. They

19 said that they felt that it was probably

20 trivalent chromium because of it's color

21 rather than hexavalent. They did some

22 tests. I don't know if you're aware of

23 this.

24 What is the potential source?

25 As long as it's opened up, shouldn't we be

AK500098

44

1 collecting that from a pooled condition.

2 He said that he felt that it was something

3 that should be addressed, but it was not

4 in their scope of work. So I found

5 somebody from EPA. I think it was just a

6 minor representative, and I asked about

7 it. He gave me no answer.

8 I was wondering if you were

9 aware of the potential to address that

10 situation at the time that he had the pit

11 opened up where maybe you could have

12 assessed the situation better rather than

13 to allow the final fill with the clean

14 soil whether that was something that was

15 just covered over and the information

16 didn't get to you from your clean-up

17 contractor. We saw it as locals. We

18 asked about it. There were people that

19 knew about it. Did you know that this was

20 a potential opportunity rather than to

21 renounce that we would just rather not

22 disturb the site. Are you aware of this?

23 MR. HAMs We did talk about

24 the water that was in the pit, and we had

25 to test that. So we were aware.

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color?

RESIDENT: It was red in

MR. HAMs It was

yellowish-green. That might be why they

called that trivalent.

RESIDENTS Either way, it's

hazardous waste.

MR. HAKs Yes. Again* that

soil removal was intended to address

the soil contamination. We were aware

that there was ground water problems. We

did plan to continue to investigate that,

which is what we we have done* and what we

are now doing. If there were an easy way

to go in and clean up the rest of the

contamination, we would like to do that.

So I guess we haven't looked at all these

alternatives.

RESIDENTS It was available

for investigation. We asked the question

what is the potential source, and

everybody shrugged their shoulders. I

never got a response. I know that when

DER tried to charge me with something, I'd

have to identify the source to be able to

ARSuui00

46

1 come with an acceptable plan upon which

2 they judge me. Now, that's where I'm

3 asking you. You hear a situation that's

4 going on, and I got the shrug of the

5 shoulders, and the backfill came in.

6 MR. BURNS: I want to answer

7 a couple of things. I don't want to get

8 away from what you were saying about

9 contamination. Basically, I think what

10 our study -- Neither Greg nor or I was

11 aware of this conversation. We weren't

12 there. I don't know the details of that

13 conversation. As Greg has said, if there

14 was water that was getting into the

15 excavated pit, that water was taken out

16 and removed along with the soil. We've

17 done post clean-up sampling.

18 As Greg had mentioned, we

19 found that everything we went to get,

20 we've gotten. We went further than —

21 We've put in wells, and continued to

22 sample. What we're finding is some water

23 five to 20 feet deep. It's not even a lot

24 of water that every time we sample the

25 water the well goes dry. It seems like

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it's residual contamination. The source

of it is one has to speculate seeing as

how you have two pockets areas, one of

which was under the electroplating, one of

which is under the lagoon area. But

everywhere else that we have wells, we're

not seeing it. You're seeing that we have

some residual contamination, even after we

dug all the soil out, there's still some

contamination left that little bit of

water sampling there and did pick it up.

Now I think what our sampling

has shown and what we're presenting to you

tonight points to the success of what

we've done other than residual

contamination that we're speaking of

tonight. Again, that's where we go back

to accummulating. I think it's very

important. You have children, you're

concerned with their safety. As you know,

EPA started with a surface area, and we

stretched that even further. Now, what

standard do we use for that type of

protection?

The way it works is if

AR500I02

48

1 there's contamination, we have to make

2 sure that it is not accessible to the

3 general public. Ways that it could be

4 accessible to the general public are if

5 you drink it. That's why we're concerned.

6 If you drink it, it becomes accessible to

7 your body.

3 Another way that

9 contamination can become accessible is if

10 you come in contact. If it is in the top

11 two feet of soil, which is where the

12 contact becomes very important with the

13 action of children. What they're going to

14 do is dig into it or roll into it or get

15 it on their hands or put it in their

16 mouth. That really was the driving force

17 with our first remedial action why we took

18 this so far.

19 In this situation no one is

20 drinking this water because you can't

21 drink it. You just don't get enough

22 yield. It would be more trouble to try to

23 get enough to drink. It's just not worth

24 anybody's effort.

25 The second thing is we don't

AR500I03

49

1 have a dermal contact problem. It is

, 2 under the surface. It is under five feet

3 under our clean fill. What we see is a

4 situation that is very stable and presents'9

5 no environmental harm to the general

6 public. I drew that out in order to make

7 that point. That is the first thing we

8 looked at, and that's what we looked at, a

9 situation that is safe.

10 RESIDENTS Why did they stop

11 at 12 feet when the contamination went to

12 20?

13 MR. BURNSs They basically' •- : : ': . '. - '

14 kept sampling as they went. They tested

15 the soil as excavatING it. And at that

16 point, the samples showed it 50 parts per

17 million.

18 RESIDENTS But they still got

19 contamination?

20 MR. BURNSs That's residual

21 contamination. I think that's what we are

22 seeing here. But at the level that we

23 were cleaning up, again, we went rather

24 deep when you consider that what we're

25 trying to prevent in this situation is

50

r-i 1 dermal contact. So at 50 parts per

2 million —

3 RESIDENTS Now you're trying

4 to prov'e that it's gone. Had you examined

5 the extra eight feet? If you'd had all

6 the contaminates, then up wouldn't have

7 the water problem.••

3 . MR. BURNSs Again, we felt

9 that the 50 parts per million clean up

10 level of soil* we were getting all the

11 contamination. There would be no residual

12 contamination, or very little. I think

13 that's what we found. We found there's

14 very little contamination compared to what

15 we started with. And it's contanimation

16 that has not moved* that we feel will

17 never get to anyone's drinking water

18 supply* or hasn't for 30 years. It hasn't

19 in 30 years when you remember it had a

20 highly concentrated source on top of those

21 two areas; the lagoons, which were packed

22 with contaminates; and the electroplating.

23 RESIDENT: 30 years you

24 didn't have all those wells either. Now,

25 all you did is open up the surface down

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there.

MR. BURNS: That's a very

good point. I'd like to comment on that.

What Greg pointed out with the deed

restriction is we don't feel that they

would construct their wells as safe as we

construct ours. The situation that's been

brought up by the gentleman here doesn't

compare.

If you put an open bore hole *

for example, you can actually let the

contamination move to the top. It will

get in the bore hole and go down to the

drinking water. That's why, as we put in

our wells that are still on the site, we

continue to monitor them.

RESIDENT: That's standard

for any well.

properly —•

MR. HAMs If they're not done

RESIDENTS Why can't you put

well points in and constantly pump them?

Well points will pull that water out of

that ground every place down to the depth

that you have to go.

51

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1 MR. HAM: We'd have to pretty

2 much cover the whole area. If you pump it

3 and it runs dry •— In some cases in two or

4 three days it didn't recharge, and so we'd

5 have to --

6 - RESIDENT: If you install

7 well points in that area and you put a

8 vacuum pump on there to suck the water out

9 of that ground, you won't have any of that

10 water left. That will be a dry area. It

11 would be just like a desert after a period

12 of time.

13 MR. HAM: It would take years

14 to do that because of the slow movement of

15 the water and --

16 RESIDENT: It may take years,

17 but it may take less years than that to

18 contaminate the water.

19 MS. BROWNs Sir, we know you

20 have a lot of comments and questions, and

21 we appreciate them. We'll move on and let

22 other people comment. May I see a show of

23 hands please.

24 RESIDENTS I have two

25 questions. The first question is: Are

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you saying that the chromium, the stuff

that we' re talking about, is extended in

the ground water?

MR. HAM: It is. The

hexavalent chromium is dissolved --

RESIDENT: It's in the ground

water? It's not in the soil?

MR. HAM: There may be some

in the soil in those areas, but it's

primarily in the water itself. Hexavalent

is soluble and does stay in the water.

RESIDENT: So we're not

talking about one source that's

contaminating the water with the chromium?

MR. HAMs Right. It was

initially put in as a liquid. We think

it's some of that residual from that

original waste disposal.

RESIDENT: My second question

iss This option that you're talking

about, option B, how many sites are you

using that on at the present time and how

successful is it?

MR. HAMs We have used deed

restrictions in other cases.

AR500I08

54

1 RESIDENT: Water sampling,

2 the water sampling. Can you give us an

3 example of a site that you used this plan

4 on and whether or not the results are over

5 the period of 20 years or so or is it 12

6 years?

7 MR. HAM: I don't know of any

8 sites. We have lots of sites where we

9 have put in wells and pumps and treated

10 the water because the soil was permeable

11 and would allow us to do so. This is an

12 unusual site because of the irapereability

13 of the soil because of the fact that the

14 water is just sitting there moving very

15 little, if at all. And, again, we have

16 wells in there and we pumped them and then

17 they run dry.

13 RESIDENT: You really haven't

19 had that kind of experience with this plan

20 B. Have you used it anyplace?

21 MR. HAM: Since all our sites

22 have been --

23 RESIDENT: I'm talking about

24 a specific location where you have used

25 this plan more than for the ground water, ^~/

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1 and could you tell how much the

, 2 contamination did move. Do you have any

3 statistics, or are we just talking about

4 something that's very theoretical so to

5 speak?

6 MR. HAMs This site is very

7 unusual* and I think this is what I was

8 talking about, a typical site with a

9 ground water problem.

10 The ground water will move.

11 It will move either vertically, or it will

12 move horizontally and why it moves is the

13 same reason. It's the same type of groundW

14 water that people get out of wells. It's

15 that type of ground water. It has what's

16 called hydraulic conductivity* and it will

17 move that certain direction. So you're

18 continually getting water from your well.

19 We have monitored wells

20 around those sites* and what we will see10

21 is the ground water will move from the

22 site itself into an off-site well. This

23 really isn't the typical ground water in

24 that there's not enough volume of weti - - •

25 soil. We get some water out initially,

AR500I10

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1 and then it dries up. Well sampling that

2 we've done over the years have not shown

3 this ground water moving like we've shown

4 on a typical site.

5 RESIDENT: What I'm saying is

6 that these wells have been in for a number

7 of years now and that we do know the

8 ground water is not moving.

9 MR. HAM: There are sites

10 where we have left waste in place and just

11 continued to monitor them.

12 RESIDENT: Has the

13 contamination spread?

14 MR. BURNS: Typically, where

15 we leave waste in place is landfills

16 because it's too big of volume of material

17 to move. We have different — It runs the

18 whole spectrum.

19 Basically, we have landfills

20 where the material keeps getting into the

21 ground water and the ground water is

22 moving so readily that we can put a pump

23 downgrade or* in effect, down stream from

24 the landfill to pump out water that we

25 treated.

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We have other landfills that

are material similar to this one but not

as tight where the water moves away from

the landfill very slowly; and as it moves,

it becomes cleaner because it's moving so

slow.

In those situations what

we've done is instead of trying to attempt

to pump the ground water, we've put in

filter treatment units on the residential

wells that were adjacent to the site.

And* typically, it's only a few homes.

It's usually like a farm .area* a rural

area. That is more efficient just to

treat an individual well than to try to

pump and treat all that water because it's

moving so slowly.

RESIDENTS Let me see if I

can understand this. If you realize the

extent of the contamination as far as the

ground water is concerned before you have

started to dig it up* if you had dug down

10 or 15 feet* how ever far it is, and

taking that wet dirt out at the same time,

you would remove not only the contanimated

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1 dirt or soil but also the contaminated

2 ground water at that level; is that

3 correct? Is that essentially correct?

4 If you would have known the

5 extent of the contaminated ground water

6 before you started the project, if you

7 would have gone down how many feet, 15

8 feet or however far it was, and removed

9 the dirt and everything, all of that

10 contaminated ground water would have been

11 soaked up by that dirt and the problem

12 would be solved; is that correct?

13 MR. BURNS: It's hard to say

14 if we would have gotten everything or if

15 we would still be in a situation where

16 there is some residual contamination.

17 RESIDENT: Well, would there

13 be as much residual as there is now?

19 MR. BURNS: I would say there

20 would be less.

21 RESIDENT: Significantly

22 less?

23 MR. BURNS: I would say it

24 would be less.

25 RESIDENT: So the only way to

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get this out of there would be really to

go back there and dig that thing out 15 or

20 feet down if you want to remove that

residual ground water contamination which

is found up in the soil; is that correct?

Would that be the only really positive

way to clean out that whole area so there

is no contamination at all? We know it

doesn't go below 15 feet in the area you

encompassed. If you took all that dirt

out down to that depth, then you're

removing most of that contaminated ground

water; is that correct?

MR. BURNS: If we remove all

the soil down to 20 feet and that whole

volume that we show on the map, my guess

is that, yes. If we replace that with

clean soil, I would seriously doubt that

we would see any residual contamination.

RESIDENT: So the residual

contamination would be so slight that we

may not even be able to measure it?

MR. BURNS: It would be more

difficult to measure than we're having

right now.

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1 RESIDENT: It will be an

2 acceptable level. That really is the only

3 way to solve the problem; is that correct?

4 These other plans don't seem to lend

5 themselves to this particular situation.

6 MR. BURNS: That would be a

7 very expensive proposition, a very••

8 expensive undertaking. It probably costs

9 in the millions.

10 RESIDENT: Well, when you dug

11 the dirt out that was taken out

12 previously, you went down one, two, three

13 feet, or in some cases, ten feet on the

14 location?

15 MR. HAM: About 15 feet under

16 the building and one to three feet most of

17 the rest of the area.

18 RESIDENT: In fact, in order

19 to do something like that, that would have

20 been the time to do it.

21 MR. BURNS: Remember we went

22 down 15 feet in the area to your right.

23 That's why I'm saying — I'm not trying to

24 hesitate on the answer, but here's a

25 situation where we went down 15 feet. ^-

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1 Following the theory that you

2 proposed to us right now is that if you

3 dig deep enough, you will clean it up.

4 Here we're in a situation in that area

5 where we went down 15 feet and we feel

6 that we've gone to a depthithat we'veA

7 removed everything. We put clean fill in

8 there, and there was still this residual

9 material.

10 RESIDENT: It must be below

11 the 15 feet level. It must be around 20

12 or 25 feet.

13 RESIDENT: I personally

14 viewed the pit when it was opened prior to

15 the covering it over and saw this

16 yellow-green mixture leaking into this

17 open pit. And the decision to backfill, I

18 was told was "Well, we only think that's a

19 ' pocket." Now, could that be the source of

20 that contamination in that area today?

21 MR. BURNS: Was it in the

22 same area where these --

23 RESIDENTS The plating site.

24 MR. BURNS: Again, neither

25 Greg nor I saw the -•-

62

1 RESIDENT: I understand that,

2 and it's too bad that we've had a complete

3 change of EPA engineers and site managers

4 that were not here for the past several

5 years that would know completely what was

6 there. So that certainly could be the

7 site causing that contamination at the

8 plating site today.

9 However, I am clearly

10 oppossed to you putting deed restrictions

11 on that propoerty. That would affect

12 property values in the South Abington

13 Township from the Scott line all the way\

14 down to Northern Boulevard. You can't sit

15 there and say that it's not going to

16 affect anybody. That would be known as a

17 toxic site in the South Abington Township

18 on the top of the hill where everything

19 goes down. And no matter what you told

20 potential buyers, they're going to be

21 thinking "Everything is going downhill.

22 I'm getting out of here." It's certainly

23 going to drastically reduce property

24 values.

25 MS. BROWN: If there were not '"•«-•

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deed restrictions and were to dig a couple

of things that would happen to the ground

water --

MR. HAM: Our concern with

the deed restrictions is that it will help

prevent any further migration.

RESIDENT: If you have a lien

on that property, nobody should touch it

at all. You have a lien, that means

everybody should be forbidden to get on

that property.

RESIDENT: Is the lien

entirely on that green that I'm looking at

and not just on that 15 acre.

MR. HAM: It's the whole

property of the electroplating facility.

I'm not an attorney. I'm not familiar

with liens, but I don't think it gives us

ownership of the property. It just gives

us rights to financial considerations.

RESIDENT: It prevents you

from allowing for development or any

interest on that propoerty.

MR. HAM: We couldn't prevent

the owner from doing something to that.

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1 RESIDENT: How much is the

2 lien for?

3 MR. HAM: I'm not sure if it

4 has values associated with it. The amount

5 of the clean up was just under 24 million

6 dollars.

7 RESIDENT: Why doesn't that

8 green line go to the street? Why does it

9 stop back there? I'm sure their legal

10 description on that property, who

11 originally owned that garage, their legal

12 description should encompass out to the

13 street. Why didn't the green line start

14 there?

15 MR. HAM: Their original

16 property did go all the way out to the

17 street, but the owner of the facility no

18 longer owns the properties on the front

19 along the street. He only owns that one

20 parcel.

21 RESIDENT: That was brought

22 up earlier. The original owner of the

23 site, who owned the plating business

24 apparently right after the building burned

25 down and before the heat was generated by

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DER, the property was transferred to his

brother-in-law. It's all family. That's

what happened.

RESIDENT: I thought that

today if you owned a property and it has

toxic wastes on it, you, the owner of it

today, are responsible. Is that not true?

Then whoever lives in that house who owns

that property today, whether they did it

20 years ago or not, they own it today.

My understanding today that is they're

responsible.

MR. HAM: If there's

contamination on their property?

RESIDENT: Yes. The

contamination was, but.you drew a line

there instead of extending out to the

street with it.

MR. HAM: It basically is —

MR. BURNS: Your point is

that the resident right there should be

considered what we'd call a potentially

responsible party for it?

RESIDENT: That's correct.

MR. BURNSs Basically, you're

66

1 saying we shouldn't put a lien on that

2 property?

3 RESIDENTS That's correct.

4 That green line should go out to the

5 street. Those people who live in the

6 house own all that land in the back, and

7 they incurred the responsibility.

3 . RESIDENTS No. Excuse me.

9 EPA has a statement that was issued

10 relatively recently that private home

11 owners are not considered in that regard

12 unless they have actually contributed to

13 that contamination. They are exempt as

14 are their financial institutions that are

15 holding the mortgage.

16 RESIDENTS Would you please

17 comment on that? I don't know how I would

18 interpret whether they were actively or

19 inactively involved. Would you comment on

20 that?

21 MR. BURNS: That has been the

22 policy that if you're just an adjacent

23 property owner and you innocently own the

24 property where there's contamination,

25 there's a whole legal definition of what

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one would consider an innocent property

owner, that you are not responsible, and

the agency does not go after someone in

thatsituation.

RESIDENT: I think what she's

trying to point out is it's their belief

that they tried to circumvent the law by

tranferring the property to another party

so they wouldn't be held responsible, and

they would like this looked into, and

they'd like to find out the answers to it.

It's very simple what they're asking.

MR. BURNS: We can look into

that. I believe it's something that we've

looked into in the past. It's something

that we'll be checking into as to the

owner of that particular property whether

they were involved with the actual

operation

MR. HAM: We have looked at

it, and we were told that there may be

other property owned by them. We have

looked into a number of potential

situations of that sort, but it's one

thing to have a hunch that that was the

68

—| 1 case and another thing to be able to provej

2 that in court. That is what we would have

3 to do if we were going to put a lien on

4 it. That's not an easy thing to prove

5 that that was done deliberately. We have

6 looked into whatever assets the previous

7 owner has and determine if there's

8 anything that we could recover. At this

9 point, we're still on the case. That

10 situation is not closed.

11 RESIDENT: I agree with what

12 has been said about the decrease in real

13 estate value. I would, however, like to

14 bring out a few things that might have

15 been overlooked. And I will do this in

16 more detail when I write my comments.

17 I'd like to tell you why I

18 can't in good conscious support

19 alternative two, or one. Alternative two

20 is really a no-action plan, and it was so

21 labeled under the feasibility study. The

22 only difference between two and one is

23 that two has a few more long-time

24 monitoring wells and institutional

25 controls.

69

1 You say on page seven and

2 page nine of the handout "They will not

3 reduce toxicity, mobility, or volume of

4 the contaminates." You *lso say "They

5 will remain on-site and would be reduced

6 by natural attenuation, and that it will

7 take two thousand years for the

8 contaminates to be reduced by natural

9 attenuation to MCLs, maximum contamination

10 levels. Longer if back ground is used as

11 a clean up."

12 It is not a permanent

13 solution. It, therefore* does not meet

14 the statutory preference for permanent

15 solutions and technology that provides for

16 resource recovery. Nor does it meet the

17 objectives of the Superfund as we have now

18 within the recent past by the present head

19 of EPA on national television. According

20 to her the objectives of the Superfund

21 ares One, to clean up the site; and two,

22 to restore it to productive use, which

23 this does not.

24 It does not comply with ARAR,

25 Applicable, Relevant, and Appropriate

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i—I 1 Requirements of Pennsylvania. EPA says it

2 will seek a waiver because this is

3 no-action. Mr. Paul V. Panek

4 of the Pennsylvania DER sent around a

5 memorandum because he disagrees with that.

6 On cost. I am a fiscal

7 conservative. This having been said, I

8 b.elieve that if this is not completely

9 cleaned up, the money already spent will

10 have been spent in vain. I think the

11 estimate of the cost of alternatives may

12 be too low. It assumes, and you say so,

13 no resistance from property owners or

14 township to deed and zoning restrictions.

15 This may not be the case; and in deed, it

16 might cost dearly.

17 I would also call to your

18 attention that during the monitoring

19 period of 30 years* and if it takes two

20 thousand years to reduce it, we should be

21 monitoring it for two thousand years. If

22 during the monitoring period one of the

23 other alternatives becomes necessary, the

24 cost will be at the dollars that year not

25 at the dollars this year. If you assume

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inflation rise of 1.5 percent for 20

years, that makes more than 30 percent

because it increases exponentially and

algebraically.

You say that you estimate

that it will take two thousand years for

the contaminates to reach the bedrock

aquifer. It seems to me that the presence

of chromium in any residential well may

show that there is a pathway from the

overburden to the intermediate zone and to

the bedrock aquifer. Also, in your 1988

Administrative Record when the bedrock

aquifer is discussed, it is very often

referred to as the fractured bedrock

aquifer. Besides this is only an

estimate; and if I remind you before you

people took over, it was estimated that

the soil contamination had not moved off

the original land site and would not move

off for 27 years. In fact, it had already

migrated one quarter of a mile to

adjoining properties.

You answered me this

afternoon when I asked about the

72

1 discrepancy about 30 percent and the 75

2 percent; and as I understood you then said• M

3 it was because you couldn't be sure of the

4 effectiveness of that technology. Mr.

5 Panek thinks that this could be added to

6 the site program, Superfund Innovative

7 Technology Evaluation Demonstration Site;

8 and he doesn't think that the other

9 alternatives are any more uncertain or

10 unreliable than a lot of others.

11 Finally* you talked of the

12 scoring and in the Administrative Record

13 Feasibility Study it is said that all of

14 these factors are equally weighted; and

15 you say that if they were weighted evenly,

16 the results might have been different. It

17 seems to me that though cost is important

13 and some of the other factors are

19 important, things like removal of

20 contamination should count twice rather

21 than once.

22 And, finally, we heard a

23 great deal from Washington today about how

24 undesirable it is to leave an enormous

25 deficit for the generations after us; and

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this is right. But I believe that it

would be morally indefensible to support

alternative two and leave a contaminated

site for the unforeseeable future to

future generations. In fact, to use the

word that is not fashionable today, I

think it would be wrong.

RESIDENT: She read every one

of your 25 thousand pages.

RESIDENT: My name is Mike.

I had the opportunity to review the flyer,

all the various altenatives, and it's my

opinion that altenative two really is no

action.

Basically, we're leaving the

problem the way it is and keeping an eye

on it and hoping that there is no problem

in the future. I think any permanent

solution has to address getting rid of the

contaminated toxic water in the area.

Altenative two presents progress, but I

think it should go further in addressing

the removal of that water whether it be by

pumping it out or some of the other

alternatives mentioned. I don't think you

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r-n 1 can just leave that water stay there.j

2 That's not a satisfactory solution.

3 RESIDENT: I'd like to say

4 one thing in summary. When EPA first came

5 and identified the site and made up a plan

6 and finally cleaned it up, we embraced all

7 of you. We welcomed you into our homes.

8 We were very grateful for what you were

9 doing for us.

10 Now there's this serious

11 problem. we reject these alternatives,

12 and I beg you to please help us to come in

13 and identify the problem and clean it up.

14 We don't want a rug pulled over it.

15 That's not what we want. We're asking you

16 to help us. We reject these alternatives

17 that you presented tonight.

13 RESIDENTS I'm a local

19 property owner and neighbor of most of the

20 people here. It's seems like you point13

21 back to the source. It seems to be the

22 source in the area of the original

23 contamination.

24 Sensibly, if it's not cleaned

25 up, it could continue to contaminate other

75

1 areas just as it has before. If it's

2 significant enough to pinpoint it now as a

3 contaminated area and it's important

4 enough that you want to put these deed

5 restrictions and zoning on it, why

6 couldn't it be addressed differently and

7 cleaned up and there won't be any need for

8 any restriction and zoning and we wouldn't

9 have to worry for our families in the

10 future. That's what I think the only

11 solution is.

12 MR. BURNS: I guess I can't

13 stress this enough, and I am sympathetic

14 to a lot of the comments that we've gotten

15 and it's very similar to the comments that

16 I've heard from other sites.

17 When there's a situation,

18 especially with landfills, a lot of the

19 superfund sites we have are landfills.

20 Basically, we're forced by the nature of

21 the problem to leave the landfill there.

22 We cap them. If possible* we pump the

23 ground water adjacent to the landfill; but

24 the landfill remains where it is.

25 What our actions revolve

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1 around in these situations is the threat

2 of drinking water, the threat from normal

3 contact. I am receptive to everything

4 that you've said here this evening about

5 the contamination that is here, but what

6 we're trying to tell you is that we looked

7 at different ways to handle this. It is

8 contamination that was left in place, and

9 it's not moving.

10 Our alternative is -- I think

11 we're restricted in how we can possibly

12 get this water out of the ground. And it

13 doesn't fall into a typical ground water

14 treatment level that we have to typically

15 pump it and then treat. This is not a

16 situation where we can use that. It just

17 won't pump. We're not getting that volume

18 of water.

19 What I'd like to say is that

20 we are here to listen to your comments,

21 and we'll re-evaluate what we proposed

22 tonight. But, at the same time, it's not

23 an easily-remedied, corrected situation.

24 The alternatives that Greg went through,

25 Greg and I looked at these things for the

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volume of water that we're dealing with;

and, basically, we feel it will be a waste

of money because it just won't work. We

don't have a situation that we would

consider a good condition for this type of

technology.

I'm going to agree with the

gentlemen who made the earlier comment

that if I was going to do something that

felt safe, what I would consider felt

safe, I still think that we would be left

with some residual contamination. It

would be a matter of going back and

actually duplicating what we did already

at a great expense and a great disruption

to the area.

Again, even then I won't be

able to sit here and say right now if we

dug 20 feet, three months later we would

still find residual contamination. I make

this point again because when I hear some

of the comments, I don't want you to think

we're not listening to these comments. At

the same time, I want to give you a sense

of how long we've tried to hash out these

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1 different alternatives and their success

2 rate. And, again, when you compare that

3 to any potential threat to help that's

4 really why I'm repeating this. That's

5 what really drives EPA.

6 In this situation, we don't

7 have a drinking water problem, and it

8 hasn't moved in a long time. We don't

9 have the dermal contact problem. At the

10 same time, we're listening to what you're

11 saying.

12 I'm trying to continue what

13 the women here said that we had a good

14 relationship in the past. We want to

15 continue that. But, at the same time,

16 consider what we're saying in return

17 because this is not an easily-corrected

18 situation when you compare it to our other

19 Superfunds.

20 RESIDENT: I don't think any

21 of us here feel that you can compare it to

22 a dump site or a garbage dump or an area

23 where you have a problem like that. It

24 just feels as though we're being pacified

25 and being told to accept this, there's a

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1 little contamination left, we came

2 originally to clean everything up, maybe

3 we made a mistake, let's see what we can

4 do now just to keep what's there, put a

5 little restriction on it to make sure

6 nobody drills a well. It just seems like

7 we're trying to be pacified.

8 We had a pretty dry season.

9 Maybe the next couple of years might be

10 wet. That area will fill up again and all

11 the dirt that was removed could be

12 recontaminated. It's just not acceptable

13 to us to have this feeling. Well, this is

14 what's left. There's always something

15 left at some sites. The main intention is

16 to clean it up thoroughly and completely,

17 and that just hasn't been done. I don't

18 think that's acceptable by any of us

19 really.

20 MR. BURNS: And you use a

21 good choice of words as being pacified.

22 We're not here to pacify anyone. We're

23 really here to present the value of our

24 investigations. The point is well taken

25 in that you could have three more wet

80

i — | 1 years.

2 I want everyone to walk away

3 from the meeting with a sense that we've

4 had 30 years of weather at this particular

5 site when it had a higher loading

6 contanimat ion than is there now. It now

7 has clean soil and that the contamination

8 in all kinds of weather over the 30 years,

9 it hasn't moved mainly because we're

10 dealing with site conditions that just

11 doesn't allow it.

12 RESIDENT: It has moved from

13 the original site. It con taniraa ted all

14 this area.

15 MR. BURNS: Only on the

16 surface it has. What we're dealing with

17 now is the subsurface. The subsurface

18 hasn't much beyond the original

19 electr ©planting facility.

20 I'm not trying to get into a

21 debate or argument. I'm trying to say14

22 when you value or weigh all the concerns

23 that I've heard this evening* if one of

24 your concerns is the next three years we

25 may have a very wet season, remember that

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this is the situation after 30 years of

weather. I'm just trying to point out

that to consider all the information.

RESIDENT: I understand. It

just seems to me that 30 years it

contaminated quite a big area, and it may

or may not take that long this time.

Nobody would really know. When we leave

the meeting, what are we going with? What

are we leaving with? Is something going

to be done further? What's going to

happen after this?

MR. BAM:. We will go back and

consider all the comments we got tonight

and any written comments that we receive,

and we will re-evaluate our decision and

see if the preferred alternative can

change between the comment period and when

the record of decision is issued. We will

re-evaluate our decision and see if we can

do something to address your concerns.

MS. BROWN: We'll answer your

questions and address all the comments

that we receive, and we'll contact those

responses; and from that point, the

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1 response summary, the impact of the record

2 of decision and decision of the actual j

3 documentation.

4 RESIDENT: One of my concerns

5 is where you first estimated you never

6 thought that it was going to be this deep.

7 Couldn't it have gotten that deep when you

8 were digging it out? Did the rain push it

9 deeper? Is that a possibility that that's

10 how it got to that level?

11 MR. BURNS: It's a

12 possibility. We've thought about this so

13 long. I've even had my own theories. One

14 of the possibilities that it actually had

15 clean soil exposed and it was able to

16 drive what was there. Sort of like a

17 coffee filter. It sort of went right

18 through it.

19 The other theory that I

20 thought of if — We did it when we opened

21 it is that we allowed, because the soil is

22 so dense, we allowed an opening for this

23 stuff to start seeping through because the

24 soil we put back in there is very tight.

25 It's the same type of soil that we left.

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What we did was we probably.1 eft a little

air space between what was there and what

was dug out. And that water had an escape

route. All these years it hadn't anywhere

else to go. It pooled right in those

areas.

RESIDENT: What my concern is

if that's the case, it's pretty hard to

determine how in two thousand years it may

become a more dangerous level if the water

wasn't seeping through. How would you

estimate that it would take that many

years to migrate?

MR. BURNS: I think the

contamination itself when we dug it or

maybe from the actual excavation may have

loosened it. It wasn't something that

just came.

RESIDENT: I'm saying it's

getting deeper. . ' ,

MR. BURNS: I think we would

have seen something like that happen

before now. I would think that it would

get deeper if we had the soil conditions.

I allueded to the upper extreme which we

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1 don't have in part, which is sandy soil.

2 If you have a landfill in New

3 Jersey, the water is practically sucked

4 through the ground. In this situation we

5 don't have that type of soil. It's very

6 permeable. We don't have a situation from

7 all agencies where we see that.

"8 . RESIDENT: If we would have

9 some type of rock formation, is that what

10 we don't have, rock?

11 MR. BURNS: That's what we

12 don't have. We don't have rock. The rock

13 starts about 80 feet.

14 Remember when this

15 electroplating facility was in operation,

16 he was basically dumping liquid. It

17 wasn't that he was dumping solid material

18 that then rainfall was hitting and it was

19 seeping into the ground. He was dumping

20 stuff in a liquid form. So if it's ever

21 going to move, it will move when it's a

22 liquid. Like when the rains gets in and

23 breaks it up, it was liquid; and you have

24 to expect to see it move in that form and

25 move down through the ground. But,

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actually, we didn't find that permeating

through the ground. They overrode it, and

it moved towards the surface.

RESIDENT: What is the radius

of the area where you did the well testing

in private residential land, and have you

done any well testing or water testing at

different levels, eleven thousand feet

which is the drinking water in that area?

Under any of these plans, would you

continue to test the wells in the private

areas? How often would you do it, and for

how long would you do it?

MR. HAM: We don't have a

definite plan. We did test certain ponds

and both creeks on either side of site,

and we have not found any contamination in

any of those.

RESIDENT: How far did you go

on private residence?

MR. HAM: I have an overhead

that shows the residences that we did

sample. Again, the darkened area is the

area of the site, and this shows the

residences that we did sample. So some of

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1 them are -- This one is actually off the

2 side here. So they're a fairly extensive

3 distance from the site.

4 I think our initial plan --

5 We were planning to do — I think in the

6 proposed plan we said we would sample

7 quarterly for two years then annually

8 thereafter. We haven't decided on a

9 definite time frame. We may increase the

10 quarterly monitoring. We will set up the

11 monitoring wells on the site and probably

12 just the residences immediately adjacent

13 to the site because if we're not seeing it

14 in the wells on the site or those

15 immediately next to the site, it's not

16 likely that it would bypass two circles of

17 well space.

18 We don't have a definite plan

19 at this point. That would be described in

20 the record of decision as to what exactly

21 we would do. We'd be glad to accept

22 comments on that.

23 RESIDENT: I would like to

24 see testing continued for an indefinite

25 period of time.

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MR. HAM: We did select 30

years because we think the purpose of the

quarterly monitor up front is to establish

a baseline so we get regular sampling to

see what's happening over a period; and if

we1re not seeing any migration over that

time, then we believe it would be

acceptable to drop back to a longer-term

monitoring, once a year. It would never

be less than that.

If we do start to see

migration, then we would re-evaluate the

situation, increase the monitoring level,

or continue the quarterly monitoring.

Then, again, if we saw migration that was

unacceptable, we would have to re-evaluate

the alternatives or the whole site.

basically.

RESIDENT: What authority

does the EPA have to actually place

restrictions in people's deeds? Where do

you get that right? "

MR. HAMs We have to work

through local governments or local

agencies to implement them. We would have

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1 to go through the normal legal channels to

2 place any type of deed restrictions.

3 RESIDENT: You're not going

4 to get a deed restriction on someone

5 unless they agree to it.

6 MR. HAM: The property owner

7 does have rights in that regard.

8 RESIDENT: So that may be

9 just speculative. There may be no deed

10 restriction placed on that propoerty if

11 that owner doesn't want it.

12 MS. BROWN: That's really

13 something that our office divison

14 counselor who handle.

15 RESIDENT: That's a big point

16 that you're pushing in alternative two,

17 and can you do that? Is that going to

18 actually be part of alternative two?

19 MR. HAM: In the plan we said

20 we would recommend those measures. We

21 would work to see that we could get them

22 implemented. We have an attorney that's

23 looking into what the available avenues

24 are for that. We can't say it inclusively

25 that we would put them in place at this

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1 time. We would make the property owner

2 aware of our intentions.

3 RESIDENT: Does EPA ever take

4 ownership of the property because of the

5 situation?

6 RESIDENT: We have about six

7 of them that you can take right now.

8 MR. BURNS: A lien is one

9 thing. Actually, the law gives us a lot

10 of the authority, and that's one authority

11 we don't have. We can't take ownership of

12 property. They don't give us the

13 authority to do that.

14 We have other Superfund

15 studies where we have had to impound

16 residences. There was a long debate about

17 who would take ownership of that property

18 once we took care of it. We would set up

19 situations where we would help the actual

20 problem and help the owner relocate. We

21 were not able to handle it because the law

22 does not give us that authority.

23 RESIDENT: What are your

24 guidelines for purchasing properties in

25 contanimated areas?

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1 MR. BURNS: I'm not very good

2 or an expert on how that works. What I've

3 heard is that what we do is we work with

4 the law that's called the Uniform Location

5 Act. And somehow a situation is worked

6 out that we can purchase or reimburse the

7 property owner for the fair market value

8 of that property. And even in those

9 situations, to get back to the previous

10 question, we don't take ownership of it.

11 It's an arrangement that we work out with

12 the property owner. I don't know the

13 details of that. It's very, very rare.

14 RESIDENT: I'm Frank. I'm a

15 legislator from this area. EPA has been

16 in the district with three Superfunds that

17 had been supposedly cleaned up. I

18 remember with the Northeast Lehigh

19 Electric Study they had background levels

20 of PCB's on some of the bricks, and they

21 buried them on-site; and they fenced the

22 area.

23 With northeast landfill they

24 put capital landfill and water monitoring

25 wells around them. Those sites ended up

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1 to be less of a contaminated environment

2 than these are except for the landfill.

3 But this site, 24 million

4 dollars was spent and the property has a

5 decrease in value. Isn't there anyway you

6 could push to see that some compensation

7 is given to those property owners

& surrounding this site as a result of the

9 failure to potentially totally clean the

10 property? Wouldn't it be up to you

11 gentlemen, personally, to push that those

12 property owners deserve some compensation?

13 Do you think they deserve compensation?

14 MR. BURNS: I don't have an

15 answer for that either. I don't know the

16 standards that they use in those

17 situations. As we talked about

18 previously, I haven't had any experience

19 with what we've done in the past. I know

20 it has been rare.

21 The situation that I know of

22 for sure was the contamination in the

23 individual residence. So it wasn't a

24 situation that it was adjacent to

25 contamination. The contanimation was

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1 actually in the home. That's as much as I

2 know about it. It's something we can look

3 at. We've heard your comment. We can get

4 back to the people.

5 RESIDENT: That's just not

6 good enough. At this point, in my

7 opinion, for the people who surround this

8 property only because 24 million dollars

9 was spent, and it has not achieved a

10 productive property. I personally find it

11 hard to blame anyone for that because I

12 think the contanimation could have come in

13 any form.

14 So until testing is done

15 weeks or months later, you never know if

16 you got problems with contamination as a

17 result of the seepage and osmosis that

13 takes place in other areas. This is not a

19 complete clean up. Your plan to end this

20 project as an EPA site isn't going to

21 clean it up, and there are property owners

22 whose life savings are in these properties

23 surrounding a contaminated area and

24 somebody's got to compensate those people.

25 And I'm assuming that it's you gentlemen

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that have to push for that compensation.

The potential is there for

the future contamination, which eliminates

their ever selling those properties at a

fair market value. And it's not their

faults. The property owner, from what I

understand, you only put a lien on him and

his assets. Right?

MS. BROWNs As far as

property values are concerned to give a

very accurate answer to your question as

far as compensation is concerned, we

really have to speak to the attorney for

this site.

RESIDENTS Would we be able

to talk to the attorney for this site,

personally? And why isn't he here if

that's a prominent question?

MR. HAMs That hasn't been

raised as an issue?

it?

RESIDENTS You didn't expect

MR. HAMs We know it's a

concern of the citizens. But as far as

the issue of reimbursement for cost and

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1 values, that really hasn't been raised.

2 Obviously, everyone's concerned about

3 their property values, and we're aware of

4 that. The specific issue of reimbursement

5 hasn't been raised. We will discuss that

6 with our attorney and get back to you. We

7 have to work within the frame work of the

3 law.

9 RESIDENT: I understand. Two

10 others questions. Where are you dumping

11 this contaminated soil that was cleaned

12 out of here?

13 MR. HAM: There are two

14 facilities. One is in Alabama, and one is

15 in Michigan; but they are approved

16 facilities to handle this. The material

17 was treated before it was placed into the

18 landfill. It was basically a lined

19 disposal unit.

20 RESIDENT: And if 24 million

21 dollars was spent so far, what would it

22 take to go back and really eliminate the

23 contamination if you've identified it to

24 an area of 15 feet and you know that

25 there's a hard soil that it's not seeping

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into to get into the other wells?

MR. HAM: We talked about

that before what the gentleman before

referred to about digging up the whole

area. It would cost at least that much.

RESIDENT: At least another

another 24 or 25 million?

MR. HAM: Right.

RESIDENT: So wouldn't it

then be cheaper to relocate with the

problems that are potentials for those

surrounding properties?

MR. BURNS: Again, this is

something we can look into. I want to say

again, I don't have much experience. But,

at the same time, I don't want to mislead

anyone. As much as I know about this the

residences have to be contaminated, and we

are not in a situation like that.

I think the example that was

brought up before was marginal. From what

I understand, there was contamination in

the homes. We don't have that situation

here; and even though I'm not an expert

and I don't have experience, I want to

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1 tell people tonight so they're not

2 mislead. I do not think or believe this

3 fits that situation like the Marjol

4 project.

5 RESIDENT: Marjol was not a

6 Superfund site. The Superfund

7 administrator didn't do anything. The PRP

8 did the entire clean up. All Superfund

9 did was oversee every decision or every

10 bit of money that was spent. It was

11 approved by corporate headquarters.

12 There was only one property

13 that was purchased, the Richardson

14 property. It was very, very difficult,

15 and the company finally reluctantly agreed

16 to purchase it. But Superfund had nothing

17 to do with the purchase of that property

18 at all.

19 We've looked into it before

20 to see if Superfund could purchase these

21 properties. There's nothing in the

22 current law that allows it. There was a

23 PRP there and he had the money. I would

24 say you should have recourse against the

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97

1 potential property owner who caused the

2 damage and get your money from him, which

3 is exactly what happened up there.

4 The purpose of the Superfund

5 ' l a w was so that these sites could be

6 cleaned up when there was no money

7 available from the people who contanimated

8 them so that the parties who were injured,

9 the innocent parties who live there now,

10 would not have wait until these people

11 have the money to clean it up.

12 The government has to come in

13 and clean it up and go back and try and

14 seek the money from the party who did it.

15 If they don't exist, they just have to eat

16 it.

17 RESIDENT: Another thought I

18 had, if the federal government fails to

19 properly and totally clean it up, would

20 the residents have any future type of

21 action against the government for failing

22 to do a total clean up knowing that there

23 could be contamination down the road and

24 it was left?!

25 MR. PETERSON: We've been

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1 sued before by the citizens if they feel

2 strongly enough. I think that's happened

3 in the past. I don't know what the

4 success rate of such actions have been. I

5 don't know what issues have been involved.

6 I just know that it's happened. Actually,

7 it's probably happened in both situations

8 where people felt they didn't do enough,

9 people felt they didn't want us around. I

10 don't know what kind of success rate

11 there1s been.

12 One of the misconceptions is

13 that Superfund can turn it back to

14 pristine conditions. That's not really

15 the provision or the intent of the law.

16 What it does is it gets it to a condition

17 where there is no longer a threat or a

18 health hazard presented by the

19 contamination. What they're saying here

20 is that this remedy or proposal meets

21 those criteria that we're obliged to

22 follow.

23 For those of you that are

24 wondering, my name is Al Peterson. I'm

25 with EPA. I'm the Superfund Community

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Relations Manager. .

MR. BURNS: The point about

the risks that we looked at in these

situations, drinking water risks, normal

contact. What we're there to do so is

eliminate the risks to the human health

and environment.

RESIDENT: Again, on getting

back to the options the EPA is proposing.

If you don't get the deed restrictions,

what are your intentions? Do you plan to

go ahead with that option?

MR. HAM: We would do

whatever we could to try to implement

that. If we couldn't, we would continue

to monitor, and we would probably --

During our monitoring, we would keep an

eye on the property and see if there was

anything being done to increase migration

rates.

RESIDENT: You wouldn't go to

any of the other options?

MR. HAM: If it got to the

point where we knew we couldn't do

anything, any deed restrictions, we'd

100

1 probably have to re-evalute if we can't

2 fully implement --

3 RESIDENT: That's basically

4 my question. If you can't fully implement

5 it the way you proposed it, would you

6 still go ahead and try to do it partially

7 or go back to one, which is basically

8 worse that two?

9 MR. HAM: If we couldn't do

10 something that we said we were going to

11 do, we would have to go back and either

12 issue an explanation or significant

13 difference.

14 RESIDENT: Would you propose

15 other options, or this is it?

16 MR. BURNS: One thing you

17 must understand with this site is that we

18 don't walk away from the site. The law

19 requires us to do what's called a

20 five-year review. So every five years we

21 review the conditions at the site to see

22 if they've changed dramatically, to see if

23 the situation warrants new action. So

24 that's one of the ways that we would keep

25 looking at the site. If it looked like

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everything was falling apart from what we

had envisioned, we w'ould consider other

options.

RESIDENT: If you had a lien

on this property, you have a visual lock

on it, why did you need the deed

restriction?

MR. BURN: With the lien we

feel we are already moving in the

direction of keeping that property secure.

Basically, we feel it's going to be in the

condition it is for a very long time

because of a lien. There's going to be

hardly any activity at the site, and we're

pursuing other measures to ensure that.

RESIDENT: I honestly don't

understand why we're still talking

restrictions. I thought we explained that

that would affect hundreds of households

in this area. Doesn't that blow your

mind? How can you possibly think if you

put restrictions on that property -- That

would be like a love canal in South

Abington Township.

You might as well put a fence up and a

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1 padlock.

2 MR.' HAM: I think we have a

3 lot of information about the extent of

4 the —

5 RESIDENT: Sir, listen.

6 People moving in this area will not

7 understand, and they won't even give you

8 an opportunity to explain.

9 MR. PETERSON: sir, one thing

10 and I know everyone —- This not even a

11 topic for our Superfund site and that is

12 land value. The feeling I'm trying to

13 give you tonight is something we're going

14 to consider as far as you're concerned

15 about the land value of the adjacent

16 properties. It's something I would like

17 more information on.

18 At the same time, I've been

19 involved as the project manager at the

20 landfill site I know they're building

21 right next to our hill. What I'm giving

22 you a sense of is there is two sides to

23 this coin. I have experienced this; and,

24 at the same time, this is a consideration

25 and something that we're going to

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1 consider, and we're going to continue to

2 talk about.

3 I don't want everyone to walk

4 out of the meeting and say that this is a

5 definite because I've seen just the

6 opposite around the sites. I just want to

7 keep it in perspective.

8 RESIDENT: Will there be any

9 further hearings to listen to everyone's

10 comments and change the alternatives?

11 Would we have another public hearing?

12 RESIDENT: Or whatever your

13 decision is, how would we be notified? By

14 writing, or how will we be notified?

15 MR. BURNS: You would

16 probably be notified by writing. That's

17 usually the way we would make them. We

18 will respond to all your comments and make

19 our final decision. We would have all the

20 information in front of us.

21 RESIDENT: Is that final

22 decision open to appeal?

23 MR. BURNS: Basically, once

24 we make the decision that — It can be

25 appealed.' If we have followed all the

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1 standards that we talked about this

2 evening, usually it falls within the

3 agency1s favor.

4 If you prove we arbitrated

5 capriciously, that we just acted on a

6 whim, that we were not responsible for

7 upholding the law that gives us the

8" authority, that would be a very difficult

9 legal situation for us to be in. Once we

10 make a decision that shows we have

11 followed all the regulations and the

12 requirements that are set out by the law,

13 the agency has a record that our final

14 decision has been upheld.

15 MS. BROWN: I thank you very

16 much before you all leave --

17 RESIDENT: I have a question.

18 How would I get the name and address of

19 the lawyer who's handling this site?

20 MS. BROWN: You can give me a

21 call when we're back in the office.

22 RESIDENT: What's the number?

23 MR. HAM: I can give it to

24 you.

25 MS. BROWN: There are copies

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of the proposed plans up here. If you're

not signed in, please stop and sign in.

(Proceeding concluded.)

AR500I60

C E R T I F I C A T E

I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings and

evidence are contained fully and accurately/ to

the best of my ability/ in the stenographic notes

taken by me on the hearing of the above cause/ and

that this copy is a correct transcript of the same

(NORTHEAST REPORTING SERVICES, INC.POSTJOFMCE BOX 2281WILKES-BARRE, PA 18703

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