SMC Demolition Work Plan Response2

Pi-Pa-TAG, Inc.

Pinellas & Pasco Counties Technical Assistance Grant

1015 Wideview Ave.

Tarpon Springs, FL 34689

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Phone (727) 937-2968 Email: chimal@flasuncoast.net Fax (727) 942-3978

The remedy proposed for the Stauffer Chemical Superfund Site was selected on the basis of flawed and inadequate site characterization. Under the pressure of public disclosure of the lack of any attempt at proper site characterization, EPA has withdrawn the Amended Consent Decree and agreed to carry out "additional studies" - studies which should have performed as part of the original Remedial Investigation, with the results incorporated into the original Feasibility Study.

The Board of Pi-Pa-TAG, Inc. has carefully reviewed the Agreement to Conduct Studies to Include: Geophysical Studies, Treatability Studies and Groundwater Characterization Studies; the appended Scope of Work (SOW); and the attached Superfund Memorandum of Understanding Between the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, as well as the Review of these documents by Drs. R. Kevin Pegg and Mary Starnes Saunders. We concur fully with the concerns expressed by Drs. Pegg and Saunders in their Sept. 1, 2000 letter to the PI-Pa-TAG, Inc. Board. We append a copy of that letter to this communication, and thus make it an official part of Pi-Pa-TAG, Inc.’s Comments on the aforementioned three documents.

It is abundantly clear to us that EPA Region 4 remains fully committed to their previously selected remedy. Thus, we fear that it is their intention to ‘interpret’ the results of any further studies simply to prove the adequacy and safety of their selected remedy. The SOW begins with the statement, “The purpose of these Studies is to demonstrate that the remedy selected for the source control operable unit number (OU1) will provide protectiveness of human health and the environment over the life of the remedy.” The Site Objectives listed in the SOW state that each aspect of the studies will be strictly limited to investigation of soil and groundwater capability of withstanding the imposition of the already selected remedy. Treatability studies are planned to test the integrity of the cement mixture to be used in this previously selected remedy. EPA Region 4 holds fast to an obviously strong bias, thus rendering themselves open to the charge that they are incapable of making the open-minded, unbiased, scientific analysis needed to plan and evaluate any future studies.

We do not intend to be lulled to complacency by the same people who have given us false assurances all along. The Board of Pi-Pa-Tag formally and emphatically requests the following:

(1) The Record of Decision must be re-opened. All future testing must be treated as a genuine Remedial Investigation, with formal Public Comment Periods. These studies must form the objective basis for remedy selection. The full data and its analysis must be considered scientifically. The agency may not ‘pick and choose’ selective bits of data that would seem, in isolation, to support the EPA position, ignoring and/or hiding salient facts that show that position to be unwise. Because there are no reliable data to support the remedy selected, all activity other than testing at the site should be suspended until site-characterization studies have been completed.

(2) Full groundwater characterization must be carried out. The Scope of Work states that, “The purpose of the groundwater studies described in this order are to address groundwater only to the extent that it impacts the effectiveness of the selected remedy. Determination of the off-site extent of groundwater contamination, its impacts on the Anclote River, etc., will be performed under a separate order.” This is not acceptable. The hydraulic connection between the contaminated Surficial Aquifer and both the Floridan Aquifer and the Anclote River must be fully investigated. Contaminated plumes to the Anclote River must be included in this investigation.

(3) The anomalies found in the Pond 47 areas referred to in the 1987 Geophysical Survey (NUS Report, April 5, 1989, Appendix B-1)), apparently a buried drum field and a potential plume to the river, must be investigated completely. Clearly, the particular area in which the finding occurred was congruent with the report of the location of drum burial, as pointed out by a Stauffer management-level employee (per NUS Report). Since this finding was clearly described in the NUS Report, we are puzzled as to why it has not been actively investigated and why it was not discussed in the Black and Veatch Data Evaluation Report (May 8, 2000). Findings from any investigation of the specific area, from the release of the NUS report up through the present time, must be made public with full documentation of procedures and conclusions.

(4) In the “EPA’s Finding of Facts” section of the Agreement to Conduct studies (subsection E), the following statement is made: “In accordance with 40 CFR 264 (b) (7) (ii) (e) , phosphate slag is a solid waste but not a hazardous waste”. Phosphorus slag contains both chemical and radioactive contaminants, and we insist that it be treated accordingly. Region 4 has changed the label they use to describe the phosphate slag left on the site. There is a widely held belief that its original designation as hazardous material was used in order to declare it to be too dangerous ( and too expensive) to remove from the site. Now the same material is being designated as solid waste and declared to be safe enough not to require removal from the site. It certainly seems that EPA and SMC mean to avoid altogether the expensive prospect of removing the slag and will call it whatever they feel necessary to accomplish that goal.

(5) In order for the community be truly granted the access and oversight it has been promised, it is necessary that all progress reports and documents be analyzed by the TAG environmental scientists. That analysis will be immediately made available to the public.

We expect EPA Region 4 to honor its commitment to work openly and honestly with this community in the effort to safely remediate the Stauffer Chemical Superfund Site. Agreement to these five points will establish a firm foundation that will demonstrate to citizens in the area that the agency intends to "Do right by this community", as promised by Assistant EPA Director Timothy Fields. Anything less would be regarded as a dishonorable deception.