Reprint from the Progress Times - March 23
©Progress Times 2007 - All Rights Reserved

Area Residents Not Happy With EPA Cleanup Efforts

Same song, second verse. It could have been better, but obviously those attending were in no mood to celebrate.

Billed as a "celebration" of completion of the seven-month clean-up at the old Helena Chemical Plant site, few of those speaking had encouraging words for the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to eliminate the contaminated soil.

The complaints sounded very similar to those made at an EPA meeting prior to the start of the cleanup.

One member of the audience, which was made up mainly of residents in the area around the old plant site, said the EPA should apologize instead of celebrate.

Among other things, the EPA drew criticism for not having taken action to dismantle the old plant where the chemicals were produced in the past.

The City of Mission even got into the act as an attorney representing Mission, Ric Godinez, expressed the city's position on the deteriorating plant. "It needs to come down," he said. "It's a health hazard and the city favors demolishing it."

Godinez said when the EPA packs up and leaves, the symbol of suffering among residents in that area who reportedly have suffered higher numbers of cancer cases, asthma, anemia and other ailments will remain.

"The job is not done until that's taken care of," he added.

Samuel Coleman, the EPA Superfund director from Dallas who acted as emcee for the hearing, said the owner of the building does not want it demolished. "We have no legal authority to remove that building without the consent of the owner," he said, adding the city, not the EPA, could take action to condemn the building and then remove it.

Another speaker brought up another possible solution: evacuating residents in the area around the site to new homes elsewhere in the city.

However, Coleman responded, "The EPA is not in the business of relocating people."

Citing the loss of lives in the area, one audience member called the plant the "Love Canal of Texas," added the city should rezone the area to depopulate it and thus minimize the number of people exposed. This, he said, would protect generations to come.

Despite assurances of Coleman and Valmichael Leos, EPA on-site coordinator, that all possible safety measures were taken - and documented - when contaminated soil was removed, several of those in the audience were skeptical.

When Leos said the air has been constantly analyzed and found safe at the 10-foot level, one person asked, "Why not 20, 30, 40 feet high." Leos responded that 10 feet is the breathing zone.

One audience member said he had papers showing the air was not clean.

Also questioned the seven-month length of the cleanup. "We wanted to finish as quickly as possible," Coleman responded.

He estimated cost of the cleanup of the three-acre site at $5 million. He said 14,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and 315 tons of debris were removed from the site.

Early estimates were that the soil would have to be removed to a level of three-and-a-half feet. "However, in some places we had to go as deep as 19 feet," Coleman said.

The contaminated soil was moved to disposal sites by truck under EPA supervision. Much of it was taken to an area north of Houston, he added.

He added that 750 air samples were taken to make sure that breathing that air was safe.

"We're through excavating and digging," Coleman said. "All that's left is removing the waste safely which should be completed within the next seven weeks."

Community activist Ester Salinas, who had led the criticism against the EPA at the initial hearing prior to the cleanup, spoke only briefly this time, criticizing officials for their insensitivity to the suffering of residents in the area around the site.

Norma Lee Garza complained to the officials that rigs carrying contaminated soil had been passing through and parking in an empty lot next to a day care center she operates.