by Alex Brooks
A meeting was held on Monday, October 23 with numerous staff from the EPA and state environmental agencies present about the EPA’s nomination of the site of the Saint-Gobain plant in Hoosick Falls to be on the National Priorities List (NPL) under the Superfund legislation. [private]Walter Mugdan, EPA Region 2 Superfund Director, spoke for the better part of two hours about the Superfund program and how it works.
He began by describing the steps in the Superfund process. The first step when the EPA becomes aware of contamination is a Preliminary Assessment and Site Inspection, which involves initial monitoring and testing to assess how extensive and dangerous the situation, which was the phase Hoosick Falls was in during the spring and summer of this year. Once some data has been gathered, EPA scores the site based on the information it has assembled. A site must score higher than 28.5 to be worthy of a Superfund nomination. The scale goes higher, but Mugdan said they stop when they get to a score of 50, because at that level of contamination it is clear that the site should be nominated. The Saint-Gobain site scored 50.
On September 8, EPA nominated the site of the McCaffrey Street Saint-Gobain plant to the National Priorities List. The formal comment period is open from October 8 through November 8. Mugdan said unless there is sufficient comment against listing to change the EPA’s assessment, the site will be listed. The soonest that formal listing can happen would be in March, but given the change of administration in Washington, he thinks it will probably be a little later in the spring.
Once the site is listed, the EPA begins a much more extensive investigation of the site aimed at developing a cleanup plan. They will develop a “Feasibility Study” listing all possible cleanup options. Each option will be thoroughly examined, and then EPA will choose the preferred alternative. They will then present this to the public for comment. After evaluating and incorporating public comment into their deliberations, they will issue a “Record of Decision,” which is the final decision on a cleanup plan.
They then move into the implementation phase, designing and constructing the cleanup system. After construction of the system is completed, the final phase is “Operation and Maintenance,” which often continues for many years. For instance, if a treatment plant was built to remove PFOA from the groundwater, it might continue to operate for a long time before the site would be cleaned up enough to cease operating the plant.
Many in the audience wanted to know how long all of this is going to take. Mugdan answered this vaguely, saying the process would be longer than you hope, but shorter than you fear. But he also said there are factors in Hoosick Falls which might lead to a faster than usual process. One is that DEC has already begun a remedial investigation, so by the time the site gets listed much of this work may be well along. Both Mugdan and Mike Ryan, the Assistant Director of the Division of Environmental Remediation at DEC, said the State and Federal Superfund people work very closely together, so information gathered by the State will give the Federal investigation a big headstart.
Another factor that will keep the investigation moving quickly is the notoriety of the problem and the intense engagement with the issue of both the local community and many of the politicians who represent it at various levels of government.
Another factor that will keep this investigation moving is that responsible parties have been identified and they are financially capable. The process stalls at some Superfund sites because no responsible party can be identified, and gathering enough money to implement an expensive solution becomes a problem.
Chairman of the Rensselaer County Legislature Stan Brownell noted that the Dewey-Loeffel Superfund site in Nassau has dragged on for decades, and said he hopes that is not going to happen here. Mugdan said there are some Superfund sites that are so large and complicated that they drag on for decades, but that is not necessarily typical. He said two thirds of all the sites that have been listed have completed construction of remedial facilities.
Mugdan said the EPA encourages formation of a Community Advisory Group, which might include activitists, local political leaders, local attorneys or engineers, or whoever wants to be a member. The EPA will provide a professional facilitator to help the group to organize itself, and EPA will also provide an independent technical advisor to help the group understand the complicated legal and scientific issues involved. He emphasized that such a group would not be organized or controlled by EPA, and it would be up to the community to constitute the group and make sure it functions effectively.
The meeting began with some words from Hoosick Falls Mayor David Borge, who said he had many questions about what a Federal NPL listing would mean, but he was clear on one point – he did not believe that a Federal Superfund listing would stigmatize the town any more that it already is. “the stigma is already here,” he said. When Mugdan was asked if a Federal Superfund listing would lower property values, he said he thought the Mayor was correct about that. He said EPA has done some studies on this, and although it is not definitive, the findings suggest that property values go down when contamination is discovered and made public, but once a site is being cleaned up, property values start going back up. Mugdan said when a site is on the National Priorities List, it gives people “a high level of assurance that the cleanup will be carried through to a satisfactory conclusion.”
The meeting concluded with Mayor Borge asking the audience how they felt about putting the Saint-Gobain site on the Superfund list. There were very few of those present who opposed it, a solid majority who were in favor, and some were uncommitted.[/private]