530R810O3
ANALYSIS OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
IN HAZARDOUS WASTE SITE PROBLEMS
A Report to the
Office of Emergency and Remedial Response
United States Environmental Protection Agency
July 1981
ICF INCORPORATED International Square
1850 K Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C. 20006
-------
ANALYSIS OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
IN HAZARDOUS WASTE SITE PROBLEMS
A Report to the
Office of Emergency and Remedial Response
United States Environmental Protection Agency
July 1981
-------
ANALYSIS OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN
HAZARDOUS WASTE SITE PROBLEMS
A Report to the
Office of Hazardous Emergency Response
United States Environmental Protection Agency
under subcontract to
American Management Systems, Inc.
EPA Contract No. 68-01-5146
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
CHAPTER I:
CHAPTER II:
CHAPTER III:
CHAPTER IV:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
1.
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
2.
Organization of this Report............ ...... .....
2
3.
Principal Findings.. .............. ............ ....
3
CAPSULE DESCRIPTIONS OF TWENTY-ONE CASES...... ....
7
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1.
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 23
2.
Conclusions from Cases.................... ........ 24
3.
The Role of Public Participation in the Superfund
Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 42
4.
Public Participation in Each Major Step of Response
Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44
FOUR CASE STUDIES
1.
"The Valley of the Drums", Brooks, Kentucky....... 54
2.
The Stringfellow Disposal Site, Riverside,
California. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 69
3.
Jackson Township, New Jersey.. ... ....... .......... 85
4.
Woburn, Massachusetts... ... ....... ............... .101
Pro j ect Staff..................................... 124
Acknowledgements.. ............... ................ .125
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
CHAPTER I:
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
1.
INTRODUCTION
This report summarizes the res'ults of 21 studies of government
responses to problems at uncontrolled hazardous waste disposal
sites. It presents our analysis of why and in what manner the
public becomes involved in these situations and the consequences of
that involvement for the implementation of the new "Superfund"
program, which Congress enacted to provide authority and funds for
cleaning up hazardous waste dumps. Several of the extensive
individual reports on which the analysis is based are included as
the final chapter.
We were asked to conduct these studies by the Office of
Hazardous Emergency Response of the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to help develop EPA' s Superfund program.
Rather than simply following the traditional approach to
implementing a new program, EPA thought that a fresh look should be
taken at the way in which citizens become politically active in
connection with an environmental problem' in their community. the
sorts of actions they undertake, the kinds of relations they develop
with local authorities and with state and federal officials, and the
kinds of relations that develop between the various government
agencies charged with responding to the problem. By using empirical
data about what has actually taken place in hazardous waste
emergencies across the country, a more realistic program could be
designed, one more understanding of -- and responsive to -- the
needs of the public and the capabilities of government. In
addition, by looking at community relations techniques that have
been employed in the past in these situations and seeing which have
worked well and which have not, EPA would learn what techniques to
use in the future or to avoid. The result, it was hoped, would be a
program that could more effectively -- and efficiently -- involve
citizens in their government's response to these environmental
problems and inform them of actions underway in their community.
The first case studies we conducted held some surprises. It
became apparent that uncontrolled waste site problems, more so than
most other environmental problems, have a social and political
dimension that must be as carefully considered as the technical
aspects of the threat to health, groundwater, and air quality posed
by the waste chemicals. Without an understanding of the community
context in which these problems develop, the job of government
agencies attempting to elimi~ate the environmental threat will be
enormously complicated; without an effort to address the concerns of
local citizens, the problem may remain a continuing burden for
government. Public participation in hazardous waste emergencies, we
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 2 -
realized, is important not only to ensure that the public is kept
well-informed and involved, but also to ensure that social and
political parameters are not neglected by government authorities-.
We expanded the scope of our studies accordingly. These matters are
discussed at length in this report.
Our methodology throughout was to learn as much about a case as
possible through newspaper accounts and interviews with officials in
Washington -- the staff of local congressmen and EPA personnel --
and then to travel to the site for at least a week of intensive
interviewing. Some studies were conducted by two-person teams~ most
were conducted by one person. Officials in state environmental
agencies and regional EPA offices were spoken with at length.
Interviews at the site were conducted with citizens who were
actively involved in the problem, civic leaders, local government
authorities, and environmentalists, as well as with (in some cases)
people living in the vicinity who had taken no interest or expressed
nO concern. The completed studies will be used as background for a
manual to assist the EPA staff responsible for implementing the
Superfund program.
The four case studies included in this report are our pilot
studies, researched in the summer of 1980. They have not been
brought up to date~ they are valid only through August 1980. Often
we report allegations and opinions that were expressed or believed
by those we interviewed, but we do not mean to attest to their
accuracy in every case. We tried to report largely what is public
knowledge in the chronological backgrounds of our case studies ~
documentation is readily available for most assertions of fact, but
to avoid cumbersome footnote references, we have generally not cited
it in this report. The views expressed herein do not necessarily
reflect the official policy of the u.s. EPA.
In conducting these and subsequent studies, it should be noted,
we did not attempt to make assessments of the geohydrologic
situation or the potential hazard to health and the environment.
Nor did we attempt to judge the adequacy of the technical measures
instituted at the site by government agencies working to contain
discharges or eliminate the hazard. We describe the problem and
what was done only in order to enable the context to be understood.
By the same measure, we try not to fix blame on any party for
creating the problem. Our interest was in what the public and the
authorities on scene thought and did. Yet we were not conducting an
opinion survey: our goal was to gain insight into the' relations
between government and the public and how they can be improved.
2.
ORGANIZATION OF THIS REpORT
Chapter 2 presents capsule descriptions of each of the 21 case
studies, which are listed in Exhibit I-I according to the EPA region
in which they are located.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 3 -
Chapter 3, "Conclusions and Recorrunendations", is the heart ot
this report. We offer first a series of conclusions, supported by
examples f rom the 2l cases, about public involvement in hazardous
waste emergencies and the conduct of public informa- tion efforts to
date. Our generalizations are oriented towards practical
consequences for the government staff who will have to carry out the
Superfund program. We translate these generalizations into some
recorrunendations for measures to be instituted at each step of a
response to or clean-up of a problematic hazardous waste disposal
site.
Chapter 4 contains the extended studies .written on our four
pilot cases. We present only four studies because we think the mass
of detail tends to overwhelm the reader after a point, and the
general patterns, explained in the "Conclusions and Recorrunendations"
chapter, are of greater importance than the occurrences at any
particular site for the purposes of this report.
The following section of this
surrunarizes our principal findings.
introductory
chapter
briefly
3.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
The extent of public involvement in hazardous waste problems, we
found, has ranged from protracted conflict -- exemplified by the
well-known Love Canal case to general indifference. Most
important, however, is that there is often little relation between
the objective severity of the environmental damage or threat to
health and the level of public agitation. There are sites
considered extremely serious by technical experts that have prompted
little public i_nterest; there are other sites where little evidence
of hazard has been unearthed that have nevertheless generate~
extreme anxiety in the local populace.
What, then, makes citizens become involved in or remain
complacent about a hazardous waste emergency? Our case studies show
that neither their education nor their socio-economic status, nor
the region of the country in which they live, matters ~~. Prior
poli tical activism also seems inessential.. Instead, our experience
has been that the important factors are generally site-specific and
pertain to the political history of the corrununity, the circumstances
under which the problem is discovered and initially dealt with, and
its apparent effects on people living nearby. For example, in a
corrununity where the government enjoys a reputation for credibility
and responsiveness, citizens may trust their government to deal
satisfactorily with a hazardous waste problem without prodding and
therefore see no reason to become involved. On the other hand, if
citizens are led to believe that officials are not telling them the
whole truth about a problem or a proposed remedy, they may agitate
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 4 -
EXHIBIT 1-1
THE TWENTY-ONE CASES STUDIED
~
...
X
.., CCAo...t:P .~
,0
HI C)'i~
'()
IX
"0
1..1
so
NU
\'\
DENVER
NM
~o
CUAM
~
/I
AMERICAN SAMOA
. 'h:VUN~ Hc.edqUolII.'\
PA II
CJ.;: va
Reg io!'1 I
Region V
1.
2.
3.
Gilson Road Dump Site, Nashua, New Hampshire
Picillo Site, Coventry, Rhode Island
Woburn, l1assach~setts
14.
Seymour Recycling Corporation, Seymour,
Indiana
Region VI
Region II
4.
5.
6.
Islip Landfill, Hauppauge, Long Island, New York
Jackson Township, New Jersey
Landfill and Lang Property, Pemberton Township,
New Jersey
Love Canal, Niagara Falls, New York
15.
16.
French Limited Site, Harris County, Texas
MOTCO Site, LaMarque, Texas
Region VII
7.
17.
18.
LaBounty Dump, Charles City, Iowa
Farm Site #1, Verona, Missouri
ReGion III
Region VIII
8.
9.
Butler Turmel, Pittston, Pennsylvania
Dracup Warehouse, You!'1gsville, Pennsylvania
19.
Radium Sites, Denver, Colorado
ReQio:1 !\'
Reqion IX
10. Cabot Site, Gainesville, Florica
11. Ferguson Site, Rock Hill, South Carolina
12. Frayser and IJorth Hollywood Sites, Memphis,
Tennessee
13. "Valley of the Drums", Brooks, Kentucky
20.
Stringfellow Disposal Site, Riverside,
California
ReG ion X
21.
Alkali Lake, Lake Cou"ty, Oregon
-------
- 5 -
for help from other quarters. Factors like these seem to be
additive, in the sense that it is often only a combination of
several that heighten citizen concern and spark political activism.
Public involvement in these environmental problems has typically
peaked at the time a long-term solution is proposed. For reasons
that can be foreseen only by understanding the concerns of local
citizens, the cost-effective technically-adequate solution to a
hazardous waste problem may well prove unacceptable to a large
segment of the public. Two of the cases included in this report --
the "Valley of the Drums" and the "Stringfellow site" in California
-- amply illustrate this point and its consequences.
Citizens who have become involved in these matters have
generally consolidated their efforts by forming ad hoc
organizations, often under the leadership of one charismatic woman.
The formation of these groups, the backgrounds of their members, and
the intensity and sophistication they are capable rapidly of
developing all run counter to traditional assumptions about
political activism in the United States. The central role played by
these groups in public involvement, compared to the minor -- often
negligible role taken by established national environmental
organizations, distinguishes hazardous waste emergencies from many
of the other environmental problems government agencies have had to
deal with in the past, and may also be a harbinger of a new national
environmental movement.
There are significant implications for the conduct of the
Superfund program. The people traditionally assumed to represent
"the public" in programs managed by environmental agencies are the
members of national environmental organizations, either through
their central organizations or local chapters. The traditional
centerpiece of a public participation program is the large public
meeting. Neither avenue will suffice in hazardous waste
emergencies. The people who are most concerned about the problem
and who have the greatest need for information, we have found,
usually will not be members of established environmental
organizations. The best way to reach them is not through formal
hearings or widespread publicity campaigns, but rather, through
small-scale efforts: living-room briefings, the personal contact of
an on-scene coordinator, membership in a workshop or citizens'
advisory committee. Large public hearings have often been explosive
and uncontrollable; we do not generally recommend them.
The techniques we recommend have been used successfully in the
past. But they demand concerted outreach. In general, success in
keeping the public well-informed in hazardous waste emergencies
requires actively seeking out both affected citizens and local
officials (who may have critical roles in decisions about how to
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 6 -
remedy a site's problems). It also requires the identification and
utilization of people or organizations (the local newspaper or an
important industry, for example) that have long-established
credibility with the people in the community. And in light of the
surprising sophistication of citizens about the technical aspects of
problems that greatly concern them, it requires personnel on scene
who are sensitive to and understanding of the public's needs.
Additional considerations important to the implementation of the
Superfund program are explored in the remainder of this report.
Because our conclusions and recommendations are illustrated with
supporting examples from the twenty-one cases studied, we present in
the next chapter brief descriptions of those cases, focusing on the
causes and form of public involvement.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 7 -
CHAPTER I I :
CAPSULE DESCRIPTIONS OF TWENTY-ONE CASES
ALKALI LAKE, LAKE COUNTY, OREGON
The Alkali Lake site is a ten-acre tract on a "playa" -- a
desert basin that can fill with water after a heavy rain -- that had
been licensed by the state for waste disposal in 1968. The site was
closed in 1971~ many of the approximately 25,000 drums of herbicide
residue deposited by that time had become corroded, allowing their
contents to spill on to the lake bed or to evaporate. The Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) tded without success to
compel the licensee to clean up the site. In 1976, when state funds
were appropriated for the purpose, the drums were crushed and buried
in unlined trenches on site. The case is now considered closed by
both DEQ and EPA Region X, and there are no plans for further action.
The nearest community to the Alkali Lake is Lakeview, a town of
3,000 some 60 mile~ distant. A number of individuals in Lake County
have become involved with this problem over the years, but there has
been no organized group activity and no conflict. The burial of the
drums in 1976 was one of several proposals considered, and. there
were some people who opposed it, though without supporting any
particular alternative. At present, there is some advocacy of
further clean-up and a lingering suspicion of DEQ (one of whose
forme r employees headed the company that was awarded the burial
contract) . The fact that the state regards the issue as closed,
however, has discouraged continued activity~ there are, in addition,
more pressing environmental concerns: a nuclear waste dump in
Lakeview and an abnormally high rate of cancer in the county.
BUTLER T~~EL, PITTSTON, PENNSYLVANIA
The Butler Tunnel is an abandoned mine shaft in this
northeastern Pennsylvania coal-mining town. Quantities of oil and
hazardous chemicals were discovered in July 1979 to be flowing
directly from the tunnel into the Susquehanna River. EPA Region III
and the state Department of Environmental Resources took prompt
action to contain the flow, began testing to locate the main
deposi ts of chemicals and any possible build-ups of cyanide gas,
instituted legal actions against a number of firms and individuals
implicated in illegal dumping, and are drafting a clean-up plan that
should be available shortly. There were several low-level
indications of concern for the situation among the populace, but no
significant involvement either by individuals or groups in the
response process to date.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 8 -
In general, local officials and citizens were pleased with the
quick action taken by federal and state authorities. That, together
wi th the fact that the town's drinking water (which comes from a
reservoir) was unaffected, partly accounts for the lack of citizen
involvement in this problem; by way of contrast, there has been
intense organized opposition to the planned conversion of the town's
drinking water supply from one source to another. However, there
are additional factors that make the public's attitude toward the
Butler Tunnel problem ambivalent. Facilities for sewage and waste
treatment in the area are archaic; most communities dispose of
household and commercial waste without regulation. Yet a modern
public waste treatment system--the need for which this incident has
made apparent--would be an expense difficult to bear in this
economically-depressed area, in the opinion of local officials.
Moreover, many residents have engaged in the practice of dumping
their wastes into backyard boreholes, which seep into the old mine
shafts underlying the t~wn. Residents appear to be hesitant to call
attention to a problem in which they fear they could be implicated.
CABOT SITE, GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA
In 1977, groundbreaking activity at a construction site in
Gainesville, Florida, uncovered a lagoon filled with phenolic
wastes. The wastes, a byproduct of wood processing, had been
deposited into the lagoon between 1945 and 1966 by the Cabot Carbon
Company. A subsequent owner of the site, Raymond Tassinari, built a
drainage ditch into which he emptied the lagoon contents. Liquids
from the drainage ditch then flowed directly into the Hogtown Creek
and prompted complaints from nearby residents about odors emanating
from the water. The tar-like wastes settled in the creek bed and
with each rainfall were carried further downstream past residential
areas. Following drainage, the lagoon refilled with highly phenolic
groundwater. The problem of phenolic groundwater seepage persists
today.
Citizen involvement in the Cabot site has been limited to the
earlier complaints about Hog town Creek's unpleasant smells.
Government involvement, in contrast, has been extensive. The first
remedial action was the city's removal of the wastes that had
settled in the creek after Tassinari drained the Cabot lagoons. The
Alachua County Pollution Control District has been sampling and
monitoring the creek over the years. In 1979, the District
requested EPA Region IV assistance in inspefting the site. EPA' s
investigation led to further analysis by the Florida Department of
Environmental Regulation. Future remedial response depends on the
outcome of additional tests.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 9 -
The existence of the site has been extensively reported in the
local media ("our own Love Canal"). Members of national
environmental groups have recently moved to the area and are
beginning to take an interest in the problems at the site,
suggesting the possibility of increased qitizen activism in the
future.
DRACUP WAREHOUSE, YOUNGSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA
The Dracup Warehouse in Youngsville, Pennsylvania, is located
only a few hundred feet from the town's well water system. In April
1980, large amounts of PCB oil were detected outside the warehouse.
Under EPA order, the warehouse owner, Daniel Dracup, removed 40
gallons of the oil and placed it in drums inside the building. EPA
performed follow-up remedial action and also commissioned a
hydrology study to determine the extent of PCB contamination. In
June, heavy rains caused runoff from the site; EPA initiated a 311
action to divert surface water from the suspected areas of
contamination. When the ongoing hydrology study struck a vein of
PCB oil, 311 monies also financed removal of the oil and the
contaminated soil.
Members of an ad E2£ organization, "Concerned Citizens," are
angry at the slow pace at which the PCB oil has been removed. They
have attracted extensive media coverage and staged demonstrations at
the site. Other citizens have reservations about the activities of
"Concerned Citizens." They feel the publicity has given Youngsville
a negative image.
FARM SITE NO.1, VERONA, MISSOURI
In 1971, upwards of 150 drums of dioxin-laden waste residue from
the production of a germicide were buried in a shallow trench on a
farm seven miles south of Verona. EPA Region VII learned of the
situation in 1979, conducted testing, and concluded that the
toxicity of the residues and the geological instability of the site
presented a "substantial threat to U.S. waters". Temporary
protective measures were instituted. The company responsible for
the residue has long been out of business, but Region VII obtained
a consent decree under which the current owner of the manufacturing
facilities, Syntex Agribusiness, would remove and ultimately dispose
of the waste. Syntex I s plan is supposed to be available as of
November 1, 1980. Region VII has conducted a wide ranging public
information effort at the site. While the local public was highly
concerned about consequences to health and property values when
public announcements were first made, its interest diminished
rapidly. presumably because the site is on inaccessible private
property miles from any town.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 10 -
However, there remains concern--and sensitivity--in some
quarters. Property owners in the vicinity of the farm site worry
about well contamination and declining property values. In
addition, the Verona Betterment Committee fears that the residues
from the site will be transported to town and processsed in a Syntex
facility used once before (successfully) for waste disposal, a
possibili ty suggested in the consent decree, among other places.
This small group has been critical of EPA in the past and may well
remain so. Region VII's public information campaign has received a
mixed reaction: townspeople in nearby Aurora, where a news office
was established, are unhappy with the impression thereby created
that the "disaster" is in their locality. and a number of
individuals feel that the entire effort was excessive. Local
officials do not believe the environmental problem to be serious.
On the whole, however, relations between Region VII representatives
and local citizens have been good. Many residents say they are
suspicious of Syntex and believe the situation is in competent hands
only so long as EPA is fully in charge.
FERGUSON SITE, ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA
Sometime between 1960 and 1962, Walter D. Neal began an
industrial solvent reclamation operation on property he rented from
Lester Ferguson near Rock Hill, South Carolina. In 1966 Neal
incorporated the operation as the Industrial Chemical Corporation
(ICC) . FOllowing a dispute with the landlord, ICC moved its
operations in 1970 to a site on Rambo Road in York County near Rock
Hill. ICC left 2600 drums of various materials on the Ferguson
site. It was not until 1976 that a state official discovered the
abandoned materials, which by then were leaking from their
containers. The South Carolina Department of Health and
Environmental Control (SCDHEC) failed to secure voluntary clean-up
by ICC and began to examine the possibility of legal action in
1979. At that time, the Ferguson site was found to pose a threat to
surface waters: EPA Region IV initiated a 311 action in January
1980. Despite considerable newspaper coverage of the clean-up, area
residents did not express concern over the Ferguson site. The few
immediate neighbors had grown accustomed to the dump: several
believed that the government had completely cleaned up the site.
The interesting twist in this case is that residents living near
ICC's Rambo Road facility, though unaware of their role, were
responsible for action at the Ferguson site. A major fire at the
Rambo Road site in 1979 led a group of 25 to 35 persons to demand an
"environmental impact study" of the site. The group, comprised of
Rambo Road area residents and parishioners of a neighboring church,
presented its demands and a petition to the York County
Commissioners. The group's actions eventually resulted in EPA's
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 11 -
analysis of samples taken not only from the Rambo Road site, but
also from other ICC operations, including the Ferguson dump.
Although the EPA testing resulted in 311 action at the Ferguson
site, no enforcement' or remedial action was taken at the Rambo Road
facility. Should area residents and parishioners learn of their
effect on EPA action at the Ferguson site, they may intensify. their
efforts to achieve remedial action at Rambo Road. Residents are
unaware that SCDHEC is about to review ICC's operations in order to
determine if a hazardous waste disposal permit should be granted to
the company.
FRAYSER AND NORTH HOLLYWOOD SITES, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
In Memphis, the failure to identify the cause of certain health
problems attributed to chemical contamination has contributed to
conflicts between EPA Region IV and local citizens. Early in 1980,
Region IV conducted an emergency action at the North Hollywood Dump,
one of several known uncontrolled hazardous waste sites in the
Memphis and Shelby County area. Public concern, however, has
focused on the Frayser neighborhood, where one woman had complained
repeatedly of rashes and hair loss among her children and pets that
she blamed upon chemical wastes. A series of health studies and
environmental tests were conducted by local, state, and federal
agencies but returned with negative findings, although a consultant
hired by EPA headquarters (Fred C. Hart Associates) concluded that
"i t would seem that a health problem due to chemical contamination
may be present in the Frayser area." A number of ad hoc citizens'
groups, joined by established local and national organizations, have
taken an intense interest in the case and have brought continued
pressure to be~r on government authorities; media coverage has been
extensive.
The widely-expressed attitude of the involved public is that EPA
Region IV has been engaging in an elaborate "cover-up" in league
with city and county officials. There have been widespread public
accusations of ineptness, lies, and duplicity. The situation has
been aggravated by the confused handling of test results on several
occasions. The credibility of EPA personnel has been questioned.
Local officials seem to feel that EPA was simply "looking to find
something they could pin on the city." Partly in response to
Congressional hearings, Region IV organized a citizens' task force,
but disputes over the representativeness of its membership have
limited its usefulness to date. The fact that the members continue
to attend the meetings, however, is a hopeful sign. Local citizens,
fearing especially for their children's safety, are convinced that
their problems are caused by chemical contamination and will not be
dissuaded by negative test findings.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 12 -
FRENCH LIMITED SITE, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS
The French Limited site in Harris County, Texas, contains a
IS-acre pond that was once used as a repository for waste chemicals
and oils. In 1979, the state found high concentrations of PCBs in
sludge at the bottom of the pond and in the surrounding soil.
Although residents from nearby Riverdale have complained about foul
odors, fires, and floods at the site since 1965, their primary
concern is that they are drinking water from wells they suspect are
contaminated. The most recent form of government intervention was
EPA's initiation of a section 311 action; remedial work is still in
progress at the site. Despite past government attempts to abate
pollution at the site, Riverdale residents are not convinced that
the pollution problems have been reduced. In general, they are
skeptical about whether any acceptable remedial action, including
the EPA effort, will ever be accomplished. Government efforts to
inform the community about the site have been minimal, and resulting
uncertainty has created anxiety, particularly among the Ri verdale
residents.
Community activism is negligible at present. However, any
future deterioration of conditions at Sikes Pit, an inactive toxic
waste dump located directly across the highway from the French
Limited site, may fuel citizen demands for full-scale clean-up of
both sites. EPA could use their current involvement with the French
Limited site as an opportunity to establish credibility with area
residents. This would involve explaining the hazards of toxic
chemicals and informing the local people of what is currently known
to be at the site and the extent and nature of feasible remedial
measures. Such a community relations effort would also emphasize
EPA's technical and financial limitations in completing a full-scale
cleanup in order to prevent citizen expectations from growing out of
proportion.
GILSON ROAD DUMP SITE, NASHUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Gilson Road dump site in suburban Nashua had been repeatedly
cited for accepting unpermitted wastes since operations began in
1971. By 1978, reports of large-scale liquid toxic waste disposal
and the visible evidence of a pile of 55-gallon drums convinced
authorities that the problem was more serious than a mere permit
violation. The operator of the site was fined and sentenced.
Testing subsequently revealed high concentrations of toxic organic
chemicals in the groundwater and a moving leachate plume that by May
1980 had allowed chemicals to enter a nearby stream. The case was
thereafter declared a 311 action. All levels of government--city,
county, state, and federal --have contributed either funds or
technical assistance to the testing and clean-up of the site. At
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 13 -
present, all surface drums have been removed, but a ;:emedy for the
main long-term problem--the groundwater contamination--awaits the
completion of engineering studies. .
The dump is located adjacent to two mobile home parks developed
in 1978. The mobile home residents' .association wrote letters to
authori ties in early 1980 complaining of lack of action, but the
local public has otherwise not become involved in the case, nor has
a state-wide citizens' organization that follows developments at the
three other uncontrolled hazardous waste sites in New Hampshire.
Local residents evidently feel that government agencies have the
situation in control and that the actions taken have been
satisfactory. The visible problem has been eliminated (as of the
summer of 1980) and the water supply of the mobile homes (the Nashua
city system) is not threatened. The concerns of the mobile home
residents' association revolve more around zoning and cultivating
respect for mobile home dwellers. State and federal officials
familiar with the case are surprised that no organized citizen
involvement has yet arisen, believing it to be long overdue and soon
to come, most likely when the alternatives for remedying the site
are presented. Local officials have taken an intense interest in
the case, and the site has also been the focus of much partisan
political attention.
ISLIP LANDFILL, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
The 45-acre Islip Town landfill in Hauppauge, Long Island, New
York, is filled with 20 years' worth of municipal solid wastes,
including 4,000 gallons of illegally dumped trichloroethylene.
Because it sits over a permeable sandy ridge, rainwater and toxins
can seep into groundwater drinking supplies. A housing development
is adjacent to the landfill; some of the private wells built for its
residents have been contaminated with methane. In May 1980, state
officials detected vinyl chloride in the air at both the landfill
site and the Whiporwill Elementary School, which is located 250 feet
from the landfill. The school has since been closed in consequence.
Members of a highly-active grass-roots citizens' group, "Dump
the Dump", have been working. to compel the closing of the landfill
and are becomig impatient. They are unhappy about delays in Islip
Town's compliance with a state consent order to cap, contour, and
vent the existing landfill. The consent order also calls for
designating 16 acres of the existing landfill to be lined and used
in an interim disposal program until proposed remedies (opening of
the recovery plant and re-opening of other incinerators) are
implemented. The citizens are also dissatisfied with the delay in
re-opening the incinerators. State officials have cited the
contributions that EPA' s air standards have apparently made to the
delays. If the delays continue without adequate explanation, EPA
risks losing the trust of Islip Town citizens.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 14 -
There is a good deal of additional citizen activity in the
Hauppauge area with respect to waste disposal: Four Towns Civic
Association; Residents Against Incineration and Dumping; Wyandach
Civic Association; and, the Taxpayers Association. This indicates a
strong need for keeping communication lines open between the
government and the community. A citizen's advisory committee,
established through the efforts of the local congressman, has been
working with EPA representatives from Region II and headquarters.
JACKSON TOWNSHIP SITE, NEW JERSEY
In Jackson Township, New Jersey, the municipal landfill used to
dispose of septic wastes was blamed for the contamination by
hazardous chemicals of 146 private wells in an outlying residential
district. Residents believe the contaminated water may be
responsible for serious health problems. Township officials
responded by temporarily trucking water to affected families and
building a new water system for the district, the only response for
which they could secure financing. The residents with contaminated
wells, however, were angered by the township officials' failure to
answer their questions to their satisfaction when the contamination
was first discovered in 1978 and by the subsequent delays in
providing a new water system. Moreover, they were unhappy about
having to pay the township government, in the form of fees for
hooking into the new water system, for a remedy to a problem they
believed the township government had caused. An ad hoc organization
of affected residents has brought a $51. 5 milliondamage lawsuit
against the township. The residents' group and township officials
have been engaged in a bitter protracted feud.
The case of Jackson Township shows the potential for conflict
between a local government and its citizens when that government is
implicated in a hazardous waste problem. More important, it shows
how critical it is to reply at the onset -- openly, consistently,
and compassionately -- to the questions of an agitated public if
credibility is to be maintained. The affected residents in Jackson
Township rapidly became distrustful of and antagonistic towards all
government representatives, trusting only their own citizens' group
to help them.
LABOUNTY DUMP, CHARLES CITY, IOWA
The LaBounty dump was used between 1953 and 1977 by Salsbury
Laboratories--a producer of veterinary pharmaceuticals--to dispose
of solid by-product wastes and sludge. Toxic chemicals from the
dump were discovered in the mid-1970s to be leaching into the
adjacent Cedar River, which bisects Charles City, a town of 9,500
people in a predominantly agricultural region. Traces were found in
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 15 -
shallow wells as far as 100 kilometers downstream. Of greater
concern than the leaching, however, was the potential for
contaminating the aquifer formations underlying the site. The Iowa
Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ) in 1977 ordered Salsbury
Laboratories to excavate all wastes in the dump and move them
elsewhere. Salsbury was -able to block the order; thereafter, IDEQ
asked EPA Region VII to take the lead in the case. Region VII and
Salsbury between themselves have worked out a gradual phased
response to the site, in the hopes that removal will not prove
necessary. Construction of a two-foot thick clay cap, at Salsbury's
expense, is currently nearing completion. Additional containment
measures may be necessary in the future; they are now being studied.
This case has been marked by a complete absence of public
involvement or even overt expressions of concern. People in Charles
Ci ty have taken the word of Salsbury Laboratories that whatever the
problem at the dump may be, it is being handled as well as
possible. Their trust is not difficult to account for: Salsbury
has been a good neighbor, and it has a history of responsible waste
management. Moreover, it is vital to the local economy. If
anything has the potential to set off a public storm in this case,
it would be an attempt by government agencies to "crack down" on the
company. Further publicity would also be resented. The only points
of controversy to date. have been the widely-reported disagreements
between IDEQ officials--who believe that the threat to the aquifer
warranted immediate removal of all wastes, even though no
contamination has yet been detected--and Region VII staff. At this
stage, IDEQ officials say they will rest content only when there is
documentation that the aquifer is not imperiled. IDEQ and Region
VII, however, have fashioned a working arrangement and progress at
the site continues.
LANDFILL AND LANG PROPERTY, PEMBERTON TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY
There are two sites in rural Pemberton Township responsible for
groundwater contamination. One is the township landfill, which had
been used for solid waste disposal since 1973. The other is private
property (the "Lang property") on which drums of wastes had been
deposited in the mid-1970s. The township landfill is no longer in
use, but no provisions for clean-up have yet been made. The presence
of leaking drums on the Lang property was discovered in 1975, and
the drums (by then mostly empty) were hauled away under court order
shortly thereafter. However, when testing conducted in 1977
revealed groundwater contamination nearby. the case was re-opened;
monitoring wells have recently been installed at the owners' expense.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 16 -
Both sites are located far from any residential areas) the water
supplies of only four people have been affected. Moreover, the
population of Pemberton Township contains a large proportion of
military personnel and is therefore partly transient. Presumably
for these reasons, there has been very little public involvement in
the case. Indeed, some people in the vicinity of the sites were
unaware of the existence of any problems. The main actors in this
case have been three government agencies generally at odds with one
another. The Pemberton Township administration resisted for six
years orders from the state DEP to install monitoring wells at the
municipal landfill; it now thinks the state should shoulder
responsibility for the landfill's consequences (since the landfill's
location was originally set by the state). The Burlington County
Health Department, taking somewhat of an activist role, prodded DEP
in 1977 to re-open the Lang case and is now urging immediate capping
of the landfill. At present, what should be done with the sites and
who will pay remain unsettled questions.
LOVE CANAL, NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK
UJve Canal is the most well-known--and most complex--of all
uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. No other case has been beset
wi th so many personal clashes and informational conflicts. In no
other case has organized citizen involvement reached such a pitch
and intensity. The most prominent citizens' group to have arisen in
reaction to the problem is the Love Canal Homeowner' s Association,
led by UJis Gibbs. Other groups formed of individuals with some
bonds of commonality have also emerged: for example, one comprised
primarily of senior citizens who do not want to be relocated from
the area, another of low-income blacks from a nearby housing
project. Most such groups feel somewhat resentful that the
Homeowner's Association has received a disproportionate share of
publicity and consideration, but on the whole, these ad hoc
organizations present a united front.
The primary concerns of the local public--containment of the
toxics and relocation of the residents--are being responded to by a
plethora of governmen.t agencies. In spite of continuing tension,
most citizens feel that these agencies are genuinely interested in
remedying the situation one way or another. Nonetheless, there
remain outstanding concerns as well as certain sensitivities upon
which future developments will impinge. Pressure remains for
comprehensive long-range health studies; efforts to date are
perceived as inadequate and have not alleviated anxiety over health
effects. Attempts to assist relocation are complicated by the fact
that a boundary must be drawn somewhere, frustrating homeowners just
outside, who can consequently be expected to press for an extension
to include their properties. One general concern is that government
representatives not play favorites among the various citizens'
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 17 -
groups; there are also latent racial tensions to be considered.
Local citizens have become fairly sophisticated after years of
experience and express indignation at the condescending attitude of
some government personnel. They also express a need for greater
coordination between agencies and more continuity among the
personnel on scene.
MOTCO SITE, LAMARQUE, TEXAS
The Motco site in LaMarque, Texas, consists of seven toxic
chemical waste pits that were abandoned in 1978. It is located at
the junction of three major highways in proximity to a large
industrial complex. There is one residence about 600 yards
northwest of the site and a housing devel-
opment across one of the highways. Until the Coast Guard recently
completed a section 311 remedial project at the site, studies
indicated that the pits were emitting vinyl chloride into the air
and contaminating soil and groundwater. The extent to which these
problems have been remedied by a subsequent Coast Guard 311 action
is not known. The Coast Guard's response involved the removal of 75
drums of toxic wastes, the construction of a fence around the site,
and the reconstruction of levees surrounding the pits. Organized
citizen participation in activities related to. the site have been
minimal. In fact, non-governmental involvement consisted mainly of
one citizen's complaints to various authorities that dangerous
chemicals seeping through the pits were damaging foliage near the
site and contaminating soil and groundwater. In addition, an owner
of property adjacent to the site has filed suit against several
chemical companies, claiming loss of business. The family living
near the site has reportedly joined the defendant in the case,
claiming assorted adverse health effects.
Prior to the recent clean-up efforts, the state attempted to
force Motco, Inc. to remove all liquid and semi-liquid wastes in the
pit, neutralize remaining sludges, and cover the pits. None of
these was accomplished because Motco had already filed for
bankruptcy and was unable to finance the required activities.
It should not be assumed that the complacent attitude of local
citizens will continue to prevail in future response activities. If
the magnitude of the problem posed by the pits should escalate or
directly affect more individuals, there may be organized citizen
reaction. The media and organizations such as the Galveston County
Toxic Waste Task Force have already started to raise citizen
consciousness of toxic waste disposal hazards. In the past,
residents have effectively contributed to environmental related
policy-making, including the relocation of a chlorine plant that had
threatened Galveston Bay residents with potentially hazardous
exposures. What residents expect the federal government to do about
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 18 -
toxic waste sites is not clear ~ they tend to rely on the city and
the county to insure that remedial action is taken. The local and
state governments, however, have high expectations that Superfund
will be able to finance some sort of additional clean-up at the
Motco site.
PICILLO SITE, COVENTRY, RHODE ISLAND
The Picillo site in Coventry. Rhode Island, is a dump consisting
of one open pit and approximately 11,000 barrels of hazardous waste
buried in six 100-yard long trenches. An explosion and fire at the
site in September 1977 alerted Rhode Island officials to dumping
that they considered to be illegal. At first, the owner, Warren
picillo Jr., denied state officials access to the site. Samples of
the hazardous wastes from the site eventually revealed the presence
of carbon tetrachloride, toluene, isocyanate, nitrobenzyl cyanide,
and other chemicals. In October 1977, picillo was ordered to remove
combustible material from the premises~ state funds were made
available for cleaning up the site. So far over 1700 barrels have
been removed from the site. EPA, which entered the case in 1979, is
continuing to re-barrel remaining liquids for on-site storage.
Several actions still need to be undertaken: fencing the site,
containing chemicals that have seeped into the ground, and testing
of nearby wells.
Until recently, citizen involvement with the picillo site was
limited to complaints about heavy truck traffic on the road leading
to the si te ~ citizens were not aware that the picillo property was
being used for hazardous waste disposal. However, after more than a
year of what they perceived as relative government inactivity, local
residents formed Save Our Waters (SOW), an ad hoc group that is
pressuring the state government to clean up the-si~
SOW has accused the state of moving slowly in the case.
According to some reports, however, the state has been the victim of
picillo's delaying tactics and defense maneuvers in court actions.
Furthermore, the fact that an unexpectedly high number of barrels
were unearthed by clean-up crews may have justified a slowdown of
the work effort to reassess the cost of further action. SOW's
behavior thus far, which may be partially explained by the Rhode
Island governor's failure to meet with the group at its request,
suggests that it wants an immediate solution to the problem. SOW
may have high expectations for EPA. If this is the case, EPA may
want to publicize its current activity at the site and communicate
any limitations it faces in aChieving clean-up to the extent
demanded by the citizens.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 19 -
RADIUM SITES, DENVER, COLORADO
Since February 1979, a total of 39 sites containing buried
radium deposits have' been identified in Colorado. The initial
discovery came when an EPA ofticial happened across a reference to a
"large radium mill" that operated in Denver from 1914 to 1917.
Subsequent sites have come to light through widespread publicity and
further official investigations. At present, three sites have been
cleaned up at the owners' expense, and epidemiological studies are
underway. In addition, an agreement has been reached by which
construction in the Denver area must be cleared beforehand by the
state health department in order to prevent the accidental
excavation of a radium deposit. Most government officials on all
levels recommend the complete removal of the sites, but the funds to
do so are not presently available.
There has not been much active citizen involvement in this
case. A number of people have expressed concern over health
consequences, and several state and federal elected officials have
taken an interest. There is agreement on all sides that the
preferred course of action would be complete removal. The situation
has received a good deal of publicity; local, state, and federal
officials have relied heavily upon the local media to keep the
general public and interested groups well informed. The prospects
for Superfund being used to clean up these sites are unclear.
SEYMOUR RECYCLING CORPORATION, SEYMOUR, INDIANA
The hazardous waste site at Seymour, Indiana, is the remnant of
a waste recycling operation that went out of business. It consisted
of a 14-acre area in the middle of a cornfield filled with 50, OO~
drums and 98 bulk storage tanks containing unidentified wastes. EPA
first became involved with the site in March, 1980, when some drums
began to swell and smoke. EPA Region V called a 311 action, the
first of three, to contain the site. The second 311 action was
conducted in July; EPA repaired the dike, fence, and filtration
systems they had constructed earlier. In the third 311 action,
currently underway. EPA is removing all the liquid material from the
containers.
Citizen participation at Seymour has been minimal and has been
limited to committee work within existing organizations such as the
League of Women Voters and t.he Chamber of Commerce. The Mayor of
Seymour has been a vocal critic of both EPA and the Indiana State
Board of Health. Congressional representatives have been extremely
active in this case; their staffs keep in close contact with EPA and
Seymour residents.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 20 -
STRINGFELLOW SITE, RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA
The Stringfellow site in Riverside, California, is a series of
ponds used for hazardous waste treatment and' disposal located in
hills overlooking a residential area. Aft~r spring flooding caused
soil contamination nearby, the site was voluntarily closed in 1972
and placed under the control of the regional water quality control
board. Frequent heavy rains on several occasions during 1978
compelled officials to release large quantities of liquid wastes to
prevent rupturing of the ponds; the run-off flowed through the
streets of the nearby residential area. The Regional Board (which
now manages the abandoned site) originally favored capping the site
as a permanent solution to the problem. Eventually the Board was
persuaded by protesting citizens to recommend the complete removal
of wastes from the site. While the cost of removal was estimated. at
$14 million, the state, possibly anticipating federal assistance,
has allocated only $4 million for the task.
Two citizens' groups have been prominent in lObbying for a
solution to the problems at the Stringfellow site. One group
consists of long-time area residents "and has been involved in this
matter since 1957. A second group formed in 1980 under the guidance
of the state-wide Campaign for Economic Democracy and has a
generally younger membership whose methods tend to be more assertive
and vocal.
The Stringfellow case illustrates the possible complexity of
group dynamics in citizen involvement in a hazardous waste
emergency. Two groups with similar goals ~ut contrasting
memberships and political methods arose at different stages of the
si te response. One group formed in the 1950' s when the site first
opened. The second ad hoc group formed only recently, when remedies
for a widely recognized problem were under consideration. Through
the. effective organizing and protests of the second group, the
least-cost technically acceptable remedy preferred by government
officials was pre-empted.
THE WOBURN, MASSACHUSETTS SITE
The Woburn, Massachusetts, site consists of 800 acres of land
and wetland containing open arsenic pits, chromium lagoons, and
buried animal hides. These remains are the by-products of 130 years
of occupancy by a succession of now-departed chemical, leather, and
glue manufacturers. The site is presently being developed anew as
an industrial park. Residents of the adjoining town of Reading, a
prosperous suburb of Boston, had complained since 1973 of the odor
emanating from the site. However, the residents of Woburn itself --
an old, industrialized, blue-collar town upwind -- were unaware of
any problem until 1979 when the disclosure of the results of testing
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 21 -
for hazardous chemicals at the site coincided with the release of a
study showing an unusually high cancer rate among Woburn residents.
Several ad hoc citizens' groups formed. Various state and federal
agencies concentrated attention on the site. And a Citizens'
Advisory Committee, comprised of representatives of all local
interests, was created. A consent decree from a lawsuit brought by
the Army Corps of Engineers against the developer to force clean-up
of the site was signed in May 1980. A similar suit was brought by
the State of Massachusetts and the City of Woburn but its consent
decree was postponed by objections from the Town of Reading, which
had not been included as a plaintiff. A new consent decree was
worked out in August 1980.
Interviews at the site revealed that the public's perception is
that the government's response was well-managed. After some initial
problems were cleared up, the state and EPA outreach efforts were
generally well-received by citizens. In this case, the
effectiveness of the response can be partly attributed to an EPA
on-scene coordinator who kept the public informed of governmental
actions and a citizens' advisory committee that ensured
communication and coordination between the government, pUblic
interest groups, and local industry. Thus, the Woburn case
illustrates the value of certain public participation mechanisms.
It also illustrates how a well-conceived action (i.e., the consent
decree) can be hampered by neglecting to take into consideration all
of the concerned parties at a site.
THE VALLEY OF THE DRUMS, BROOKS, KENTUCKY
The "Valley of the Drums", in Brooks, Kentucky, a rural area
near Louisville~ consists of the remains of a former hazardous waste
disposal operation. The site has been a source of complaints from
nearby residents since 1967. Despite repeated findings of
mismanagement by state investigators, it was closed by the state
only in 1978, after the operator had died. By that time, the site
contained thousands of rusty and leaking chemical drums scattered
about a field. In March 1979, Region IV EPA conducted a 311
emergency action when chemicals from the drums were discovered
leaking into an adjacent stream. To avoid future mishaps, state
officials proposed installing an incinerator at the site to clean up
the wastes there and to provide a permanent facility for disposing
of hazardous wastes. But when the media publicized this proposal,
local citizens organized a grass-roots protest. Subsequently,
county authorities refused to grant the zoning variance necessary to
operate an incinerator and establish a permanent disposal site. The
groups that fought the incinerator proposal have now disbanded, but
the hazardous waste problem remains a highly visible local political
issue. Local politicians have used the opportunity to advertise the
failure of the incumbent county administration to solve the problem.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 22 -
Interviews at the site revealed that the county authorities
whose approval was necessary to set up the incinerator facility had
not been apprised of EPA's stand on the proposal and had no advance
knowledge of the proposal from the state. Local officials had to
judge the proposal's merits sol~ly on the basis of information they
obtained from the media and from citizens opposed to the proposal.
Had state and federal officials actively included county authorities
in their deliberations and kept local citizens informed about the
nature of the state's proposal, the proposal might well have had the
support of local officials as a feasible solution to the problem.
Local representation on the Regional Response Team during the
emergency phase of EPA's operation could have provided the necessary
channel of communication. The "Valley of the Drums" thus
illustrates the possible consequences of neglecting local
governments and citizens when making decisions about remedies for
hazardous waste emergencies.
CONCLUSION
Our analysis of these twenty-one cases follows in the next
chapter. While we recognize that each hazardous waste problem is a
singular event that is shaped by the community in which it occurs --
that is, in fact, one of our main conclusions -- we think these
cases constitute a reasonable basis for generalization. They
represent every region of the country and contain a well-rounded mix
with respect to the level of citizen concern and political
agitation. Our analysis should offer a good indication of what to
expect not only when implementing the Superfund program, but also
when siting new facilities for hazardous waste transport and
disposal.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 23 -
CHAPTER I I I :
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1.
INTRODUCTION
The extent of public involvement in hazardous waste problems has
ranged from outright conflict to placid complacency. In some cases
where the threat was serious and the resolution complex, we found an
indifferent local public; in other cases where there was not any
evidence of great danger, we found anxiety and agitation. In
several of the cases that have been quiet to date, the potential for
public activism and conflict at a later point is unmistakably
present. This wide variance in the reaction of citizens at
different sites may come as a surprise to those familiar with the
issue through media accounts of Love Canal. and similar widely
publicized trouble spots. For those who must conduct a program to
respond to hazardous waste emergencies, what is most important is
that there appears to be little correlation between the objective
magnitude of the environmental or health problem at a site and the
level of public involvement.
The 21 cases studied for this r~port were analyzed with a focus
upon the factors that prompt or discourage cftizen involvement and
the pattern that such involvement takes. Our objective was
ultimately to guide the design of a public participation component
in the Superfund program. During the course of this analysis, we
attempted to isolate uniformly-valid factors that could be used to
predict whether, and to what degree, the public will take an
interest in a hazardous waste problem in its midst. However, one of
our principal findings is that there appear to be no such factors.
Instead, the most important determinants of public involvement are
the particularities of a site's history and the specific context in
which the problem emerges. This point is explained and
substantiated in the analysis that follows.
There are important consequences of this finding for the conduct
of a public pa~ticipation program. Most obviously, there can be no
rigid procedure for the conduct of such a program--no fixed set of
steps to be taken in every case--because the range of public
attitudes to be encountered will be so great. We present (in the
third section of this analysis) a number of alternatives that can be
employed at each stage of the technical response to a hazardous
waste problem, but we leave open the choice of which is most
appropriate at a given site. A further consequence is that an
integral part of the response to a hazardous waste emergency must be
an initial on-scene investigation of public attitudes towards the
site and the political background of the site's development.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 24 -
Perhaps the most important consequence, however, is a clarification
of the role and purpose of public participation in the Superfund
program. We save our consideration of this matter until after a
discussion of what we found at the 21 sites investigated.
This chapter is organized as follows:
Section 2:
Conclusions from Cases.
and analysis.
Empirical findings
Section 3:
The Role of Public
Superfund Program.
implementation of the
Participation in
How it can help
program.
the
the
Section 4:
Analysis of Public Participation in Each
Major Step of Response Plan. Alternatives
to be used in remedial actions and emergency
re sponse s.
2.
CONCLUSIONS FROM CASES
Our generalizations
divided into four groups:
from
the
21
cases
we
have
studied
are
A.
General considerations on the structure of hazardous waste
site problems.
B.
The determinants of public involvement.
C.
The form of significant involvement and conflict.
D.
The conduct
programs.
of
public
information
and
participation
General Considerations on the Structure of Hazardous Waste
Site Problems
A.
1. Every site can be expected to have a political and
social history that will playa major role in shaping subsequent
developments. The creation of the site, earlier attempts at closure
or clean-up, previous relations between private citizens and
government agencies, prior dealings between citizens and industry,
etc., all will affect the course of pOlitical developments in a
hazardous waste incident.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 25 -
If citizens objected to the initial establishment of a waste
disposal site, they will likely be especially irritated if the site
later proves to be a health hazard. Jackson Township was such a
case. One reason local residents said they were suspicious of the
incinerator plan for the "Valley of the Drums" is that the proposed
operator was connected with someone who had a history of hazardous
waste violations. Woburn's reaction to the discovery of its
hazardous waste problems was influenced by the benefits that the
site's development as an industrial park were starting to bring to a
city that had long been in economic decline.
Perhaps the most important consequence of a site's history is to
make some people--but not others--credible in the eyes of the
public. Credibility can generally be built only over a long period
of time; and once lost, it is virtually impossible to regain, as
both the Love Canal and Memphis cases demonstrate. The credibility
of an industry that produced hazardous wastes in Charles City was
established through decades of being a good neighbor in the
community. Local citizens have not been active at this site.
Similarly, the citizens of Seymour, Indiana, had every reason to
expect that the governm~nt agencies responding to the hazardous
waste problem in their town would be trustworthy and reliable. Thus
their level of activism has been low.
An integral part of the response to a hazardous waste emergency
should therefore be an initial investigation into local attitudes
towards the site and its social and political history. One goal of
such an investigation would be to determine whom the public trusts
and who is distrusted. Specific matters to be investigated include
what individuals or organizations have established leadership roles,
what media sources are relied upon, what the economic base of the
community is, what it prides itself upon, how local politicians are
regarded, and what experience the community has had with similar
issues.
We use the term "credibility" in this report in the sense of
"believability" or "reliability." Thus, when we talk of the
credibility of a government agency, we mean that its spokesmen are
generally believed by the public, rather than being held suspect
regardless of what they say. We are not concerned with the
establishment of credibility in the vague sense of creating a
favorable public image or making a good impression.
2. Hazardous waste problems cannot be equated with
individual "sites" in all cases. Uncontrolled dumps are often found
in groups. The public may regard every uncontrolled site in a
locality as part of one general hazardous waste problem, failing to
observe the legal or technical distinctions with which government
agents operate. Across the highway from the French Limited site,
for example, is a possibly more serious uncontrolled site that has
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 26 -
not been remedied as yet. A Section 311 qction in Rock Hill, South
Carolina, was thought by state officials to have affected their
chances of forcing, through court action, the clean-up at private
expense of sites elsewhere. And the real "hazardous waste problem"
in the community, as far as the Rock Hill public was concerned, was
a troublesome new incinerator operation. In general, a plan' of
action that addresses only a portion of the perceived problem in the
locality will be looked upon disfavorably by the citizens.
Moreover, the government may appear silly and overly bureaucratic to
citizens if it spends a great deal of money cleaning up one site in
an area and practically ignores the others. Multi-site planning is
clearly required in certain localities.
3. Local and state governments look to the federal
government for leadership, technical resources (to perform health
and engineering studies, for instance), and financial support.
Moreover, they may delay action until the federal government steps
in.
Nothing has been done at the "Valley of the Drums" site (beyond
some voluntary clean-up by industries) since EPA emergency actions
were concluded in March 1979. California officials allocated far
less money to the clean-up of the Stringfellow site than the
recommended containment measure requires.. Woburn citizens,
believing the information they receive from local politicians and
businesses to be somewhat self-serving, look to the federal
government for an objective report of the facts. And in Nashua, New
Hampshire, the freely- offered financial resources of the state and
local governments were exhausted before the main problem could be
dealt with.
It is important to note that in everyone of the 21 cases
studied, state governments--though not necessarily local
governments--were thoroughly enmeshed in the situation. Usually the
state environmental agency was the first place citizens turned for
help. In some cases (Oregon's Alkali Lake, for example), the state
agency was able to handle the problem entirely on its own.
Elsewhere, as at Charles City, the state agency appealed to EPA for
assistance only when the problem grew too large or complex for it to
manage any longer. However, all state agencies can not be relied
upon to involve local governments and the public in
decision-making. We have observed several cases (e.g., "the Valley
of the Drums") where the lack of state agency contact with local
governments and citizens led to serious local opposition to a
state-proposed solution to an uncontrolled site. In general, EPA
staff will need to develop their own independent community relations
program.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 27 -
4. The Superfund program can learn from the successes and
mistakes at each site action. This series of case studies has
yielded significant lessons for agency action at other emergency an~
remedial sites. A routine step at the end of each remedial action
should be to evaluate how the public involvement worked and did not
work during the clean-up process. Some of the obstacles encountered
at each site may be unique, but other problems and their
solutions--best understood with hindsight--may offer lessons for EPA
action elsewhere. These evaluations, performed after emergency and
remedial actions, might be published in an on-scene coordinator
newsletter for the benefit of other hazardous waste response teams.
B.
The Determinants of Public Involvement
1. A widely-held theory that does not always bear out in
experience is that the public will involve itself in hazardous waste
emergencies if and only if its drinking water supply is affected.
It is true that the disruption of the drinking water supply is the
clearest and most tang ible way the public can be affected by such
problems, and (as we note below) people affected by the problem are
more likely to become involved in it. There are several cases that
fully support the theory: in Jackson Township, a bitter conflict
was precipitated by the contamination of well water; in Pittston,
Pennsylvania, where drinking water was not affected, there was
little public involvement,. even though oily wastes had left a
visible sheen on the river flowing by the town. Yet there are also
cases that do not conform to the theory: citizens in Waterloo,
Iowa, gave no indication of concern when their municipal wells were
contaminated by a dump upstream in Charles City; and at the French
Limited site in Texas, some of the people who became active in the
problem sufferea contamination of their drinking water, yet others
were concerned only about odors and recreational effects. Most
important, however, is that in the cases with the most severe and
protracted conflict--Memphis, Love Canal--drinking water was a
peripheral concern; in other cases with extensive
involvement--Stringfellow, Islip--the drinking water supply, while
threatened, had not been found to be contaminated.
2. The emergence of citizen concern
cannot be predicted on the basis of socio-economic
may in hindsight be explained (in conjunction with
that basis.
and involvement
status, though it
other factors) on
Socio-economic considerations can be used to account for
involvement in some circumstances: the intensity of the conflict in
Jackson Township -was undoubtedly caused in part by the fear of
lower-middle income residents for their substantial recent
investments in homes. However, there are other cases where people
with similar backgrounds took no interest in a hazardous waste
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 28 -
problem, or where separate groups with divergent backgrounds (as at
French Limited, Islip, Memphis, Woburn, and Stringfellow) became
involved in one problem. Thus, socio-economic factors cannot be
used reliably to predict who will or will not become involved. They
can, however, be used to predict to some extent what style of
political activity will be adopted by those who become active.
Orthodox political theory holds that the lower-middle class in
the United States is hard to rouse to political activism, lacking
both a tradition of activism and the training necessary to conduct
it. We found, however, that in a majority of the cases we studied,
lower-middle class citizens took the lead in organizing political
involvement and agitation. Often these people had no prior
political experience. A striking proportion of the highly-active
citizens -- and their leaders -- were women, a further departure
from orthodoxy. One part of the theory that was borne out was that
lower-income citizens seemed more likely to acclimate themselves to
annoyances, such as unpleasant odors, that higher-income citizens
refused to tolerate (e.g., Woburn).
Citizens who are accustomed to working through established
poli tical channels can be expected initially to do the same in a
hazardous waste emergency; those without such experience might more
quickly take matters into their own hands. Because the people who
have become involved in hazardous waste problems have so often been
poli tically inexperienced, the style of activism has usually been
highly unconventional.
3. The emergence of citizen concern and involvement
cannot be predicted on the basis of where in the country the
incident takes place. Citizens have been drawn into hazardous waste
incidents in sparsely populated rural areas (like the "Valley") as
well as in inner cities and in every region of the country.
Generalizations about the character of the people in a
locali ty--say, their passi vi ty or acceptance of authori ty--do not
explain much; what does have explanatory value are the factors that
have produced that character (such as a local government with a
history of responsiveness).
4. The citizens most likely to become involved in the
course of an emergency are those for whom the problem is a daily
annoyance, or those with children whose health may be threatened.
At the Woburn site, for example, the townspeople of neighboring
Reading, who were bothered by foul odors from the site, lobbied for
a response long before the townspeople of Woburn, who were closer to
and perhaps more seriously endangered by the site. The persistence
of the involved citizens in Jackson Township can be explained by the
fact that they were deprived of running water and that several
people in the area had developed cancer, which they assumed was
linked to the contamination of the wellwater.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 29 -
EXHIBIT III-l
THE CAUSES OF SIGNIFICANT PUBLIC ACTIVISM:
A CHECKLIST
.
Is the health of children potentially affected?
.
Are economic interests threatened?
.
Is daily life disrupted,
water?
e . g.' ,
by contaminated drinking
.
Is an effective citizen leader available?
.
Are critical information sources lacking in credibility?
.
Will government not be assumed to have the situation under
control?
.
Are there no other environmental problems in the area?
.
Does the response involve on-site disposal or
conversion of an abandoned site into an active site?
the
Factors excluded from checklist: Socio-economic status
population; rural/urban; region of U.S.; technical complexity.
of
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 30 -
EXHIBIT III-2
THE FORM THAT PUBLIC ACTIVISM TAKES:
WHA T TO EXPECT
FINDING
.
There is often little relation
between the severity of the
threat and the amount of
public involvement.
.
Public interest usually peaks
when a solution is proposed.
.
The lead in citizen activism
is invariably taken by grass-
roots groups, often under the
leadership of an individual
woman.
.
Activism is frequently aimed
at forcing the rejection of
the most cost-effective
solution.
.
Citizens and local governments
have great expectations for
Superfund.
.
A new national citizens organi-
zation may be developing.
IMPLICATION FOR PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
In some cases, the
effective response
easy to implement.
cost-
will be
Anticipate and prepare for
activism in an apparently
routine case.
Unconventional politics are
the norm. "Outside agita-
tors" are not usually
present.
Public pressure can cause
delays and skyrocketing
costs.
Sensitive explaining of
Superfund's limits is
called for~
frustrated expectations lead
to resentment.
EPA management should estab-
lish a working relationship.
Its tactics may be
unorthodox.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 31 -
EXHIBIT III-3
GENERAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNITY RELATIONS
1.
Approach each case with the idea that serious controversy is
possible. Find out what the community wants done at the site.
Study the site as a local political issue. Learn who is who,
what their views are, and what the recent history of the
community has been like.
2.
Exercise care in the choice of an on-site manager for
relations. Look for strong "people skills" as well as
knowledge.
community
technical
3.
Contact local elected officials and other
Solici t their advice and reactions. Set up
maintaining close contact.
leaders early.
a mechanism for
4.
Contact the local media,
their questions.
furnish them information,
and answer
5.
Get citizens who are directly affected by the problem involved
in advisory committees or consultations to prepare for sensitive
developments and to address urgent concerns.
6.
Set up a mechanism for answering
public--pro~ptly and in plain English.
from
the
questions
7.
Do not su rprise the community. Identify in advance any issues
that could cause concern. Develop alternatives for mitigating
concern and review the alternatives through the public
participation mechanism. The goal is to ensure in advance
community support for action plans.
8.
Moni tor communi ty reactions
strategies accordingly.
throughout the process and adjust
9.
Deliver on commitments. But don't over-commit. A broken
promise will destroy credibility, regardless of the effort put
into community relations before or after.
10. Recognize that community relations are as important to success
as the technical and legal effort at a site.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 32 -
By far the fear most frequently voiced in connection with
hazardous wastes was for the long-term effects on the health of
children. Couples with young children were often the most active
citizens at a site; the Memphis case well illustrates how intense
their concern can become.
Invariably, the majority of the citizens actively working for a
response to a hazardous waste problem are those who believe they are
directly affected by the problem. Previous political leanings or
activity generally have little bearing upon public involvement in
such circumstances. In fact, most of the people active at the sites
studied consider themselves "non-political" in the traditional sense
and probably would not have become involved in local politics if the
site had not been discovered. Local political parties were never
found to have organized political activism in these cases. These
considerations further explain why the political involvement has
generally been of an unconventional sort.
By the same measure, people who perceive themselves to be
entirely unaffected by a problem in their midst may take no interest
it it, regardless of alarming reports in the press. A good example
is Charles Ci ty, where the local populace voiced no concern over a
dump that state officials called an "environmental time-bomb" and
compared to Love Canal. In this case, the absence of immediate or
tangible effects on the townspeople partly accounts for their
attitude.
5. In a region with a multitude of environmental
problems, an uncontrolled hazardous waste site may produce little
reaction. One additional problem may seem to be little cause for
concern. Or, if there has been no visible damage from the other
environmental problems that have received attention, the public may
toss off yet another problem as an instance of "crying wolf". Fot
example, the Motco site in LaMarque, Texas, was regarded by the
local media and citizens as just one of 500' in the state and
hazardous waste mishaps as just one of many environmental problems
in this highly industrialized region. The local public was far more
concerned with nuclear wastes, oil spills, and the plan for a major
port facility nearby.
6. Citizens may become acclimated to a site's effects and
grow to accept the situation without protest. Thus, townspeople in
Gainesville, Florida, having lived for years with phenol odors from
a nearby creek, .evidently resigned themselves to the nuisance and
did not agitate for help. Much the same was true for some people in
Rock Hill, South Carolina. Note, however, that citizens elsewhere
(as in Reading, near Woburn) refused to adjust to similar annoyances.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 33 -
7. For want of a credible and effective leader with time
to devote to the cause, citizens who might otherwise become active
will maintain their distance. Local and EPA officials in Nashua.,
New Hampshire, believe that organized participation is long overdue
and see it arising when the leader of a residents I association
begins to focus upon the issue. The general public's attitude
toward environmental activism is crucial: in LaMarque, Texas, a
local surgeon respected by the media and government representatives
has been unable, in spite of strenuous effort, to arouse concern
over a site among ordinary citizens; apparently his approach to the
toxic waste problem has led some people to dismiss his behavior as
that of an obsessed man. In this industrial town, environmentalists
are usually not regarded favorably.
8. The credibility of information sources is a crucial
determinant of the public reaction. When a credible source--such as
the local industry in Charles Ci ty--says that a hazardous waste
problem is under control, the public may see no need to
participate. On the other hand, no amount of assurance from a
source that does not have a reputation for credibility will calm a
distraught and agitated public, as Regional EPA officials 'learned in
Memphis. As noted above, credibility can generally be built only
over time: it is a perception that must be. formed (or at least, not
blocked) prior to the onset of an emergency and maintained carefully.
9. Citizens may not become involved in a problem that
they believe authorities to have well in hand. Examples abound:
why seek an active role in an issue that the government is
perceived--rightly or wrongly--to be taking care of?
Informing the public that a situation is in control, of course,
is one function-of a public participation program. It is especially
valuable when conflict between citizens and government has
developed. The concerted public information campaign mounted in
Verona by the regional EPA office has contributed to the feeling of
most people in the area that the situation is being handled
competently. Elsewhere--in Seymour and Gainesville, for
instance--there was no need for such an effort: the local public
was inclined from the start to assume that government agencies on
scene would have whatever problems existed under control. The
degree of local trust in government will independently influence
pUblic confidence in a government I s response to a hazardous waste
problem; this variable must be taken into account when designing a
public information program.
10. Proposals that involve establishing a new disposal
facility in a community are very likely to be qreeted with
opposition, even when the facility is said to be entirely safe. It
seems that no one nowadays wants a hazardous waste facility in his
backyard. Consequently, clean-up proposals that include the
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 34 -
creation of a waste disposal facility (e.g., an incinerator, as in
the "Valley", or a photolysis processor, as in Verona) must be
handled with special caution.
c.
The Form of Significant Involvement and Conflict
1. Public interest in a troublesome hazardous waste site
typically peaks at the time a solution is proposed. Perhaps the
most striking illustration of this point is the "Valley of the
Drums," where there was no sign of public interest until an
incinerator was proposed to clean up the site, at which time a
flurry of opposition arose. Sites that are presently quiet--Verona,
Nashua--clearly contain the seeds of overt concern for the ultimate
resolution of the waste problem. Thus, there may be a need for
public participation in a site response even when the local public
has appeare9 to be relatively unconcerned.
2. The cost-effective solution to a hazardous waste
problem or the technically-best solution may well prove unacceptable
to a large segment of the populace. And in consequence, a solution
that is more expensive or technically less desirable may have to be
substituted. In such an instance, a state or locally funded
supplement to the federal Superfund may be required.
For instance, at the Stringfellow site, the public vehemently
opposed a solution that local officials felt to be adequate to
protect health and demanded, instead, a far more expensive
alternati ve. Similarly, the proposal to set up an incinerator at
the "Valley of the Drums" site was rejected by citizens and the
local government even though state officials believed the
incinerator wou1.d not only remedy the problem at the "Valley" but
would also provide Kentucky with a badly needed hazardous waste
disposal facility.
At several sites that have not presently reached the stage of
final dispensation, there are strong indications that certain
technically attractive solutions would be met with public
opposition. For example, a series of noisome fires at dumps in the
vicinity have made neighbors of the French Limited site skeptical of
the possibility of safely incinerating wastes there.
3. Involved citizens will form single-issue ad hoc
organizations to press for action. Ad hoc groups were formed, often
quite rapidly, at every site studied with significant public
participation. Pre-existing civic or environmental organizations
may take an interest in a problem, but the lead in organizing
opposition, advocacy, or just the expression of concern, invariably
falls to "grass-roots" organizations. In the 21 cases studied here,
members of national environmental groups were very active at only
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 35 -
one site. "Outside agitators" were rarely seen at any site.
Frequently civic and environmental groups remain altogether detached
from a problem in their locality, a suprising finding whose
important implications for the conduct of the Superfund program are
discussed below.
4. One or several individuals with considerable time to
devote to the cause will assume leadership of these ad hoc groups.
The charismatic and persuasive Lois Gibbs of Love Canal is the best
example. The leadership of the Jackson Township group fell to a man
who was unemployed, had lost a daughter to a disease he attributed
to chemical contamination, and who was a persistent and hard-working
organizer. One group at the Stringfellow site was led by.
semi-retired people. A minister took the lead in organizing Woburn
residents. The presence of someone able to assume effective
leadership may be enough to rouse an otherwise-complacent citizenry
to involvement.
The availability of time partly explains why (as mentioned
earlier) such a large proportion of these leaders are women. Other
considerations may be the greater willingness of women to admit
publicly fears for their children' s health, or (as at Love Canal)
the reluctance of men employed by the industry that produced the
hazardous wastes to become involved.
The political sophistication of such leaders--regardless
their prior experience--should not be underestimated
response-team personnel. They can usually be relied upon
effective contact with the general public.
of
by
for
5. Conflicts may arise among citizens at a site; the
local public should not be regarded as homogeneous. Ad hoc groups
with contrasting objectives or methods can emerge within one
community in response to the same problem. This is particularily
true in the larger, more complex cases. The affected citizens at
Love Canal are represented by a number of groups; there is some
feeling that the Homeowners' Association has garnered a
disproportionate share of the attention. In Memphis, some citizens
received threatening phone calls from others who thought they were
attracting too much attention to the situation. The more active
citizens in Verona and Jackson Township are apparently resented
somewhat by others in their communi ties. The differences between
citizens' groups can be rapidly submerged, however, in the face of a
common opponent--a government agency slow to act, for instance.
6. Involved citizens may make contact with their
counterparts at other well-known hazardous waste sites, establishing
an informal network. Leaders of the active citizens at Love Canal,
for instance, have visited other sites; at Stringfellow, the result
of such visits was to inflame the situation by inviting comparisons
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 36 -
between the sites. Lois Gibbs reports having corresponded with
upwards of 300 people at s{tes around the country. The advice of
people involved in Jackson Township's problems has been solicited by
citizens with similar problems elsewhere.
The extent of informal contact that has -already occurred
suggests the real possibility that citizens affected by hazardous
waste problems will band together and form a national organization.
Existing national environmental groups have left a gap that such an
organization could f ill. If the cases we studied are any
indication, this organization could be expected to use fairly
unorthodox political methods, judged against more established
environmentalist groups, and to be composed of people who have not
belonged to political or environmental organizations in the past.
The approach used by EPA officials in dealings with it would have to
be modified accordingly.
7. People can sometimes become convinced that they are
suffering from health problems caused by hazardous waste, even when
there is evidence to the contrary that should convince them
otherwise. Sometimes there simply is no good evidence one way or
the other. In either case, the anxiety of those who believe
themselves affected will persist. Thus, citizens in Memphis believe
their health has been damaged by chemical contamination, although no
contamination has yet been located, nor (in some cases) has any
health damage been identified. Residents of Jackson Township, Love
Canal, Woburn, and Memphis all believe that the incidence rates for
certain diseases in their areas are unusually high and must be
attributable to hazardous wastes.
When conflicting technical information is available--as is
generally the case--there is scientific evidence to back almost any
belief. Indeed, a central feature of most hazardous waste
emergencies is the conflict of allegedly-expert opinions on safe
levels of chemical content, safe disposal practices, adequate
protection for groundwater supplies, proper testing procedures and
epidemiological methodology, and the like. These conflicts are
pervasive obstacles to any attempt to deal with the public. Their
presence is a further reason why there is no such thing as a neat,
scientifically valid, purely technical solution to a hazardous waste
problem.
8. For partisan political reasons, groups of individuals
may take advantage of a hazardous waste emergency. Thus, a number
of local groups used the "Valley" case as a point of contention in
the 1980 election. In a more complex situation, a state-wide
California political organization has provided assistance to a
splinter group at the Stringfellow site. The organization evidently
hopes to garner attention and support, but also wants to encourage
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 37 -
grass-roots public activism over a highly charged political issue.
Frequently, elected officials hold press conferences or hearings on
site and work hard to find help, gathering publicity in the process.
9. . The litigation process can easily become closed to
public involvement, resulting in consent decrees potentially
unacceptable to the public and leaving measures designed to
facilitate citizen participation with little to do. At Woburn, for
example, a consent decree was initially blocked by the Town of
Reading, a concerned party that had been given no voice in drafting
the decree. The transfer of the bulk of decision-making in this
case to the courts has, at the same time, left the Citizens'
Advisory Commi ttee--which was formed in part to ensure the public
some role in the decision-making--wi th much less influence on the
clean-up process. The question of how to clean up the French
Limited site was in court for two years, during which time local
residents were excluded from the process; because of the appearance
of lack of progress over this period, the credibility of both the
state and county governments was hurt.
D.
The Conduct of Public Information and Participation Programs
1. Publicity about a hazardous waste problem may be
resented by the public. Hazardous waste problems can be a stigma on
a community, and anything that calls attention to the problem may
therefore be considered, by those who care strongly about the
community's reputation, to be giving the locality a "black eye."
There is a difference between public information and publicity;
at times, media events have been staged under the guise of informing
the public. We recognize that in the past, widespread publicity
campaigns may have been needed in order to call attention to the
extent of the nation I s hazardous waste problems and the need for
national legislation in response. However, the purpose is
transparent to people in the locality upon which the publicity is
focused, and the result is suspicion of motives and distrust.
Publicity is an especially sensitive matter when a community is
in difficult economic straits and dependent upon an industry that,
while implicated in the hazardous waste problem, has otherwise been
a good neighbor. Such a situation was found in Charles City.
Publicity directed at a national audience may well be wholly out of
proportion to the severity of the particular problem--as was the
case in LaMarque, where residents wondered why there was a sudden
fuss over a problem that had been in existence for 20 years--or out
of proportion to the size of the particular community, as in
Verona. Local officials in Aurora, near Verona, were also irritated
that because a news office was established in their town, outsiders
were led to think that a dump seven miles distant was within their
locality.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 38 -
An effect noted at French Limited and elsewhere was the build-up
of expectations caused by excessive publicity. When a Congressman
and the EPA Deputy Administrator visit a site, the expectation
created is that it will be cleaned up. If nothing subsequently
happens, the result can be frustration and mistrust.
2. Some of the public participation mechanisms already in
use have been fairly successful. On-scene coordinators can serve as
conduits of information and services between government agencies and
the public. One tactic of an on-scene coordinator that worked
especially well was the arranging of a field trip to the
Stringfellow ponds. Most of the nearby residents had never seen the
site before and had distorted impressions of what was really there.
A lesson from these cases, however, is that on-scene coordinators
should be given the resources and the skilled personnel necessary to
take the initiative and actively seek out public representatives and
local government officials if they are to avoid neglecting citizens
with critical roles in response plans.
Citizens I advisory committees can also be effective means by
which to channel information and encourage communication, as the
Woburn and Islip examples suggest. Nonetheless, citizens who
participate in a purely advisory committee must be able to see their
effect on the policy process, or they will feel that their effort
has been wasted. This is a sensitive matter. Public participation
efforts must make a clear distinction between actual
decision-making--which is the prerogative of government officials
alone--and public consultation. The approval or rejection of any
specific measure should be responsive to, yet not determined by, the
wishes of citizens.
EPA technical personnel dealing with hazardous waste emergencies
may be thrust into the political limelight in a manner for which
their previous work on other environmental problems will not have
prepared them. Supplemental staff training will be called for,
especially for those who will corne into direct contact with a
sensitive public.
3. Public participation can be a disillusioning
experience on all sides. Regional EPA staff have found at times
that their sincere efforts to help were unwanted. On occasion, the
most carefully planned attempts to inform and involve the public
have still met with criticism from some quarters. These occurrences
are probably unavoidable, but they are dispiriting nonetheless.
Many EPA officials complained that the public in an environmental
crisis is, in their opinion, irrational and motivated solely by
self-interest. The public, on the other hand, has often found
involvement to suggest new things to be worried about but to provide
no satisfactory answers. There is often little visible influence on
policy decisions. The experience of working with government
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 39 -
agencies can also dampen the desire to participate. The
organizational intricacies and seemingly petty turf battles of
complex bureaucracies are widely-cited sources of frustration tp
citizens who would otherwise want to become involved in response
efforts. Public participation measures can also provoke resentment
for calling attention to a problem that, within the community, is
not considered to deserve attention. In addition, if local leaders
consider public participation measures under their own supervision
to be adequate, they may be unhappy (and uncooperative) with the
establishment of new measures as part of a hazardous waste response;
such was the case in Memphis.
4. There has been confusion during the release of test
results to the public. For example, in Memphis, EPA regional
officials hastily called a press conference following the return of
positive test results but shortly afterwards had to reverse their
findings; on another occasion, a weekend delay in testing the
contents of an unearthed drum permitted later-discredited rumors to
circulate through the media. At several of the other sites, state
labs, EPA labs, or contractors have not released the results of
drinking water well testing to the well users or have not notified
residents before their wells were sampled. There is a clear need
for better guidance and oversight in this area.
5. The local press--more so than the national press--has
been an important source of information. Local press coverage of
every site has been extensive, even where there has been little
public involvement. Sometimes the coverage has been found to be
uninformative, but citizens still rely far more heavily upon the
local press than the national. Consequently, the local press is a
valuable vehicle for cOInmunication between government agencies and
the public.
The local press, in several of the cases we studied, could
readily have been put more fully to use as a means of disseminating
information. Newspaper stories, however, have to be general and may
therefore fail at times to answer the specific questions of
individuals (e.g. about property values); in such cases, press
accounts must be supplemented with personal contact. Some people in
Verona and Aurora, Missouri, for example, found that because all the
information issued by the regional EPA office was funnelled through
a news office first, it did not speak adequately to their concerns.
In general, the functions of a public information program can
sometimes be handled adequately by other sources, relieving EPA of
the need to ~nstitute a formal program. That is, if newspapers or
local government officials have been able to keep the public
satisfactorily informed, there is no need to duplicate their
efforts. More important, if such sources enjoy a reputation for
credibility in their community, it is to EPA's advantage to allow
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 40 -
them to handle the job of keeping the public informed of plans and
progress. This technique was used successfully at Islip: Regional
EPA officials channelled information through the office of a popular
congressman. By the same measure, it is important to avoid
appearing too 'intimate with sources that are held suspect in the
community.
6. The public's need for information may necessitate
actions that extend beyond the ordinary scope of public
participation. In order to provide citizens with the fullest
information about an environmental hazard, it may be necessary to
conduct testing or studies that might not be warranted on purely
technical grounds. For example, in Verona, Missouri, a geological
assessment indicated that only three wells could have been affected
by migrating contaminated groundwater; recognizing citizens'
concerns, however, the regional EPA office expanded the testing to
fourteen wells. Here and in Memphis, in addition, medical testing
was conducted even though there was no evidence of contact with
hazardous chemicals. Insofar as the point of public participation
is to keep a community well-informed about matters of direct
consequence, these kinds of actions can be important to a public
participation program.
Health studies have been a particularly thorny issue in
hazardous waste emergencies. The public may demand them on the
basis of unrealistic expectations about the ability to make a causal
link between a chemical's presence and an occurrence of a disease;
in other cases, the public may (more realistically) simply want
information about what health problems to be cautious about in the
future. In any event, the refusal to perform health studies can
raise suspicions about secrecy or a cover-up and, in consequence,
rapidly undermine agency credibility.
7. Environmental organizations--the traditional
contact between EPA and the public--have rarely played an
role in cases with significant public involvement. The
invariably fallen to local issue-specific ad hoc groups.
point of
important
lead has
Thus, if EPA wants to reach the people most affected by these
situations, it must substantially revise its current procedures.
Mailings to national environmental groups, or even their local
chapters, will only coincidentally find the people who will be most
concerned about a hazardous waste problem. Local members of
national environmental groups may be good choices for membership in
advisory commi ttees, but EPA must also reach out to the community
beyond these activists to ensure that the citizens most concerned
about the issue are included.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 41 -
8. EPA staff often will be unable adequately to control
the flow of public information, simply because the agency often will
enter a hazardous waste emergency in response to developments long
underway and long known by the public.
Public information campaigns work best if they bring the first
news of a problem to the public's attention, ensure that the media
have access to full and undistorted information, and work to prevent
misconceptions and false rumors. However, the hazardous waste
problems to which the Superfund program will respond will frequently
be long-brewing local concerns that may well be brought to
government's attention by the public. Moreover, if they are genuine
emergencies, the public information program will not be afforded the
luxury of planning. Efforts to provide the public with the best
available information will be hampered in these situations.
However, our experience suggests that there will still be many cases
in which the public is generally unaware of a site or its problems
prior to EPA's decision to respond. In Verona, Missouri, the
regional EPA office took advantage of a situation of this sort to
plan in advance a carefully-orchestrated public information effort.
9. Some issues are more controversial than others~
different groups within a community have different concerns;
attempts to inform and involve the public must be structured
accordingly. These points are too easily overlooked. Two issues in
particular, we have found--the health of children and property
values--generate the greatest emotion in citizens affected by
hazardous waste problems. Moreover, there are never clear and
decisive answers about effects on health or the value of property.
These issues, once introduced, can rapidly overwhelm a public
meeting, forestalling discussion on matters (such as the location of
new water lines, etc.), that are not contentious, that can be
clearly resolved, and on which the public's views could be genuinely
helpful to government planners. Consequently, they may have to be
held off for separate consideration and treated, on the whole,
differently from the other items addressed in public information.
In general, the issues on which information is presented should be
distinguished according to the level of public concern for them.
By the same measure, different segments of the public will have
different concerns and will want to know about different matters.
The public to be informed should not be treated as a uniform mass.
It consists, rather, of affected citizens, politicians,
environmentalists, etc. Technical information is necessary in some
quarters but inappropriate in most. Sometimes timing will need to
vary. Local officials will be held accountable by the public for
answering questions and may have the final say in any actions
undertaken. Therefore, they will usually need to be informed of
plans or developments before the general public, so that they have
time to learn about the issue and develop positions on proposals.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 42 -
This technique was used successfully in Verona, Missouri~ the
"Valley of the Drums" illustrates what can happen when local
officials are not informed of plans before they become public
knowledge through incomplete media accounts. These same
co~siderations apply to attempts to involve the public in the
planning and performance of a response.
3.
THE ROLE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE SUPERFUND PROGRAM
In the course of our investigations at these 21 sites, we met
many EPA staff members who thought that the problems of uncontrolled
hazardous waste sites are purely technical and that attempts to
involve the public in responses serve only to produce unnecessary
alarm. To a certain extent, that is correct. These sites are cause
for concern because they threaten both human health and the
environment~ the only way to eliminate the threat is through
scientific study, engineering, and remedial construction. However,
the human health threatened is that of the people who live nearby,
and the environment that must be protected is where they work and
their children play. The technical problems of uncontrolled
hazardous waste sites thus arise in community settings from which
they cannot be divorced.
We think that the case studies that follow are sufficient proof
that it is the wider problem--the physical problem together with the
political context in which it is embedded--with which government
agencies must deal in responding to a hazardous waste emergency. In
general, a response to a hazardous waste emergency that views the
problem as a purely technical matter can easily overlook the
concerns of the public. Yet citizens who feel that they have
legitimate concerns left unaddressed by a response--whatever its
technical merits--may very well press government agencies for
additional and usually more-costly measures. In other words, if the
local public and local government do not think a plan is adequate,
it stands very little chance of being implemented.
A pUblic participation program provides the means by which to
incorporate social and political parameters into the r~sponse
effort. It establishes a conduit for relations between government
and local citizens. It enables government agencies to keep the
public informed of plans for a site and actions underway. At the
same time, by allowing citizens to bring their concerns to the
attention of authorities, it can help government agencies fashion a
response that will be acceptable to the people in whose community
the problem is located.
The benefits of a public participation effort can be expected to
vary from site to site. In some cases, it will undoubtedly lead to
a smoother and more efficient response effort. For example,
government technical experts have, in the past, learned from
ordinary citizens of hidden environmental problems or of unforeseen
difficulties with intended remedies. A well-designed information
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 43 -
campaign is. the best way to prevent a distorted understanding of the
problem and unrealistic expectations about what the federal
government can do for it. A public participation program is also
probably the most effective means of preventing citizen-government
conflict from standing in the way of a response to the environmental
problem: in situations where the're already is excessive conflict,
it can contribute to reducing tension~ in situations that have
remained calm so far, it can help prevent unwarranted opposition to
technically-desirable remedies from arising and usually more-costly
measures. A public participation effort in the course of a response
can therefore lessen the likelihood that a problematic site will
remain a continuing financial burden to government agencies.
There will probably be cases, however, in which a pUblic
participation program will contribute very little to the clean-up
effort. The people who live in the vicinity of a troublesome site
may express concerns that prove to be short-sighted and
unrealistic. Involving these people in the process may not
facilitate action at the site. Sometimes the local people will
indicate no interest in the environmental problem ahd will seek no
involvement in 'the response. At other times there simply may be no
people living close enough to a site to see its problems as their
own. In situations where the socio-political context of a hazardous
waste erne rgency turns out to be of minimal consequence, pUblic
participation measures will not serve much apparent purpose and
should be scaled back appropriately.
Nonetheless, our experience suggests that it is extremely
difficult to predict from outside the community how valuable a
public participation program will eventually be. Because public
interest in hazardous waste problems seem to peak at. the time a
solution is proposed, participation efforts are justified even when
the public has made no attempt to become involved in the early
stages of a response. Furthermore, it is important to recognize
that the public may be very concerned about a problem even when it
has given no visible indication of seeking to become actively
involved. In localities with a tradition of responsive government,
for instance, a letter to authorities may be considered adequate
expression of great concern. By the same measure, groups of people
with differing political cultures may choose different courses of
action (or inaction) in the same situation. Yet genuine concern,
whatever the form of its expression, demands sensitive handling.
One reason why the value of a public participation program may
be difficult to appreciate at times is that its success can often be
judged only by things that do not happen. If EPA's program is
successful, the agency will not lose credibility; its statements
will not be distrusted; citizens will not feel that their problems
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 44 -
have been left entirely unaddressed. Conflict and opposition may
develop, but it will not be wholly devoid of any constructive or
beneficial consequences. In short, this may often be a preventive
program more than anything else.
By ensuring that the socio-poli tical dimensions of hazardous
waste problems are not neglected, and by establishing channels
through which the public can voice its concerns and become involved
in government's efforts, a well-managed public participation program
should make the overall Superfund program easier to implement and
more cost-effective in the long run. This understanding of the
purpose of public participation dictates the kinds of techniques we
have offered in the fOllowing section.
4.
ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN EACH MAJOR STEP OF RESPONSE
PLAN
Introduction
We outline here a recommended course to take when responding to
a hazardous waste site in order to ensure that local citizens are
kept informed about the situation and have appropriate means to
express their specific concerns. While much of any citizen
participation effort will depend on the site history and other local
considerations, some of the actions an EPA on-site team could
undertake at each step in the response process are foreseeable. We
present options for both long-term remedial and emergency responses.
Superfund response to uncontrolled hazardous waste sites can be
outlined in seven basic steps for full-scale remedial action at a
site. The response plan also includes an alternative for emergency
action, if, at any point in the process, emergency action is deemed
necessary. The seven steps will be:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
G.
H.
Site Discovery/Preliminary
Site Inspection
Field Investigation
Engineering Studies
Select Remedy
Construction
Monitoring/Evaluation
Investigation
This plan shows the logical sequence of events for remedial action
on a hazardous waste site problem. In practice ~ however, these
steps may be condensed; they may overlap; or long periods of time
may lapse between steps. Experience suggests that in some cases the
situation will already be fraught wi th conflict when the federal
government arrives on scene. A site that warrants federal
intervention will often have a substantial local history of
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 45 -
citizen-government interaction. One challenge to the public
participation program, therefore, is to channel public involvement
into the most effective forums and to keep the public aware of the
hazardous waste situation without causing undue alarm during the
complete clean-up cycle.
The suggestions made in this section, including anticipated
problems and developments at the various stages of the remedial
action process, will be illustrated by reference to the case
studies. Exhibit II summarizes our recommended management
strategies for community relations.
A.
Site Discovery/Preliminary Investigation
Public Participation
Problems with Public
Aspect
-- Anticipate
and
Forestall
Some hazardous waste sites that come to federal attention
will be discovered inadvertently. No one realized the extent of the
Woburn problem until an EPA engineer, on his way to work, happened
to notice illegal wetlands filling. Few were aware of the buried
wastes in the Butler Tunnel until they suddenly leaked into the
Susquehanna River. Many sites, however, will have been salient
local issues before EPA becomes involved. The federal government is
likely to enter at some middle stage of development of a problem.
EPA involvement may be in response to a Congressional inquiry, which
often indicates a politically heated local issue.
One of the first actions EPA staff should take during the
preliminary investigation of a site is to establish contact with
state and local officials--elected and appointed--and perhaps some
key citizen leaaers. These people may have some idea of the scope,
and certainly the history, of the problem. Local leaders may
present different points of view, but their early understanding and
aid can be essential. The early contacts should try to gather as
much information as possible both on technical aspects of the
clean-up contemplated and on the local politics of the hazardous
waste situation.
At this step and in subsequent steps, the federal government
must make clear the limitations on the help available through
Superfund. Unrealistically high expectations of federal action and
funds can lead to unmeetable demands at a later stage and a loss of
credibility for the agency.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 46 -
B.
Site lnspection
Public Participation Aspect -- Characterize Site Problems
Before the decision is made to expend substantial federal
resources in enforcement or remedial' action, the problems at a site
must be investigated. Site problems go beyond the physically
measurable, technical problems of hazardous waste releases; the
community setting of the hazardous waste problem must also be
characterized to determine a truly viable solution. Thus, issues to
be investigated at this stage, beyond water, soil, and air pollution
and public health, should include:
.
.
History of site;
Political occurrences
Citizen involvement;
Government action and
Legal action; and
Press coverage.
connected with it;
.
.
.
.
inaction;
This information can best be obtained through short interviews
with the state and local officials involved with the site and
ci tizen leaders representing any ad hoc interest groups, business
groups, environmentalists, and other community groups such as the
League of Women Voters. The information gleaned from these
interviews will be of interest both in contributing to the technical
understanding of the site--Iocal officials and residents often know
of past dumping practices--and in learning the local attitudes that
may shape a feasible permanent solution to the uncontrolled site.
The most effective person or persons to conduct this communit~
impact assessment would be the Superfund on-scene coordinator or a
public participation coordinator on his or her staff. Early contact
and continuity of local interaction are both important, as
illustrated by the problems encountered in the nValley of the Drumsn
where no contact was made with local officials before the state
proposed its solution. At many other sites, including Nashua, Rock
Hill, Stringfellow, and the Cabot site in Gainesville, Florida, EPA
made no effort to contact local officials or citizens. At the
Woburn site, however, where contact with the local community was
extensive, communications were much smoother.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 47 -
C.
Field Investigation
Public Participation Aspect
Public Involvement
-- Establish a Mechanism fOL
If, after the site investigation, sampling, community
impact assessment, and priority-setting, EPA decides to proceed with
remedial action, a complete field investigation of the site will be
necessary. When this decision is made, the community should be
immediately informed of the nature of the hazardous waste problem
and of the next steps in the remedial action. This can be done
through the local press, advertisement, and/or a public meeting,
depending on the particular community and its receptivity to the
different forms of publicity. The presentation should also be
explicit about how the local officials, community groups, and
interested citizens may become involved in the process. The lines
of communication to the local community must be established as soon
as the nature and extent of the problem are known to enhance the
credibility of the officials working on the problem and to forestall
opposition. In the cases of Jackson Township and Riverside County,
poor early communication may have led the community to develop
unrealistic expectations of government intervention. The government
agencies involved lost credibility, although the agencies involved
proposed technically acceptable solutions. Poor communications
existing elsewhere may result in similar problems. It is important
to remember throughout, however, that the people most concerned
about a site and most likely to become involved will frequently have
had no prior involvement either in politics or in environmentalist
organizations. The public EPA needs to reach will be missed if only
the representatives of local or national environmentalist groups are
included in these initial public participation and information
efforts.
Contact between agencies involved in clean-up and community
members can be initiated and sustained in several ways. One of the
most important and effective management tools is to have a coordi-
nator at the site to channel both citizen and intergovernmental
contact. The National Reponse Plan provides for such a contact
person, and the importance of that role cannot be emphasized
enough. Diplomatic skills on the part of the coordinator are very
important; being a good engineer is not enough for this sensitive
position. He or she must also have a thorough understanding of the
local situation. The coordinator should expect to hold meetings and
be interviewed after office hours, when community people are more
likely to be available.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 48 -
As in Riverside County and Woburn, several ad hoc groups with
different approaches to the problem may be involved in the hazardous
waste issue in a site community. One of the site coordinator's
goals should be to keep the dialogue open between opposing citizen
groups and between the citizens and various levels of government.
Establishing a citizens' advisory committee -- with representatives
from each of the concerned groups -- is one way to help ensure that
citizens and governmental agencies continue to talk. It is also a
good way to be certain that citizen participation in the process is
informed. The citizens' advisory committee can: (1) keep the local
involved citizens aware of site developments, (2) keep government
informed of community concerns and round-the-clock site developments
and (3) let citizen leaders know how other local groups stand on the
issues and clear up any misunderstandings or disagreements wi thin
the community. This mechanism has been helpful in Woburn, partly
because of the inclusive nature of the committee; a committee formed
in Memphis has been less effective to date because of disputes over
its organization and the representativeness of its membership. The
Agency must preserve a delicate balance within such committees. On
the one hand, members must be able to influence the clean-up process
intelligently. On the other hand, they must be made to understand
the limits of their advisory capacity in site developments.
Other less intensive forms of citizen-agency interaction during
the field investigation phase include: (1) public information
meetings held when significant test results or other developments
occur; (2) briefings of local officials, state agencies, and state
and federal legislators; (3) public consultations where EPA
personnel meet with small groups of citizen opinion leaders to keep
abreast of community concerns and pass on site information; (4) fact
sheets, newsletters, and press conferences; and (5) site visits.
"U>w profile" ihteraction with concerned citizens allows information
and views to be aired with less accompanying publicity. Many
communities feel that an abandoned hazardous waste site is a "black
eye" to their town, and would resent excessive publicity.
It is possible that local citizens will not want to become
involved in and extensively informed about the hazardous waste
problem at this stage. Some communities, such as the area around
the "Valley of the Drums," did not become active until a solution
was proposed (although in that case, no group tried to keep local
residents informed about the development of proposals regarding the
site). Alternatively, some citizen groups will make early and
possibly excessive demands for resources on any agency that
indicates an interest in helping, as in Riverside County.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 49 -
A key point, however, is that "citizen involvement" should not
be equated with "public hearing." In most of the cases studied,
tradi tional public hearings were not very effective in promoting
reasonable solutions for the problems. They were more likely to
degenerate into an adversary proceeding of citizens against the
government agencies.
Under Superfund, traditional citizen participation mechanisms
should be replaced by a comprehensive program of local community
relations that is continuous once the site becomes a public issue.
D.
Engineering Studies
Public Participation Aspect -- Citizen Input Valuable
Both the engineering firm and the agency responsible for
the engineering studies should, while developing clean-up options,
make a good effort to understand citizen concerns. Interested
citizens and local officials should be permitted to review and
comment on the options as they are be ing developed. Or,
alternatively, the agency must review the early engineering options
with citizen concerns in mind. As experience at the Stringfellow
site, Islip site, "Valley of the Drums," and in Jackson Township
illustrates, residents' strong feelings about what constitutes an
acceptable clean-up alternative may ultimately restrict the range of
options.
Engineering firms should be required to interact with concerned
citizens until the clean-up options have been determined. This
interaction should be closely supervised by EPA personnel. In past
cases, such as -the Nashua site, the engineering consultant has bee~
required to set up public meetings between citizens, officials, and
the firm, and to publicize and receive comments on the response
options. An on-going dialogue, in the form of small-group public
consultations, Citizens' Advisory Committee meetings, newsletters,
and briefings, will help create acceptable options. At the
Stringfellow site, a new ad hoc group opposed the less costly
solutions and demanded the most expensive clean-up alternative. If
the agency had a better idea of the positions of all groups--old and
new--it could have presented the options differently and addressed
local concerns more judiciously. It might thereby have permitted
citizens to develop a better understanding of government I s
perspective.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 50 -
Select Remedy
E.
Public Participation
Concerned Parties
Aspect
Review
Options
with
EPA should avoid presenting a fait accompli to the public
and to local officials. Offering a single alternative without
reviewing the idea with local officials and citizen leaders will
almost certainly delay the clean-up operation. At "Valley of the
Drums", there was very little local consultation by the state
government. Instead, the announcement of a single, "elegant"
solution condemned a plan that might have been accepted under other
conditions. A sensitive presentation of the plan would have
included a briefing of local officials, a public meeting with area
residents, and a comment period, giving ~he public an opportunity to
air their concerns and suggest possible changes.
Alternative remedies, once determined, are traditionally
presented at a large public meeting or a formal hearing where public
comment is invited. Overall, our experience is that public hearings
may be necessary at this stage, but they should be preceded by
extensive but informal interaction with the local citizens, groups,
and governments. Newsletters, small-group meetings, briefings, and
committee meetings may be the best forums for this exchange, to
prepare for a smooth- well-managed hearing.
Adequate advance notification must be given for the public
hearing, including newspaper and radio advertisements and posted
notices. Even when the responsible agency presents a range of
alternatives, an ad hoc citizens' group may be committed in advance
to a particular solution, perhaps the most expensive option. The
local public may force that particular decision by vigorously
demonstrating local support and media backing. At this stage of the
response, it must be remembered, previously uninterested citizens
can suddenly become vocal and demanding.
F.
Construction
Public Participation Aspect -- Keep Citizens
Progress
Informed of
The clean-up remedy has now been selected with the help of
the public. However, area residents must continue to be kept
informed of the progress of construction, new findings, and the
reasons for any delays in the clean-up. Federal officials cannot
expect state governments or local officials always to relay
information to concerned citizens. Although some state governments
have very good lines of communication with local officials, at
"Valley of the Drums" and at the Stringfellow site, EPA regional
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 51 -
officials apparently kept state and regional planning officials
informed about meetings and site occurrences, but these messages
were frequently not relayed to the local level. To ensure that the
local public is adequately informed and has reasonable notice for
open meetings on site issues, the federal agency must send the
messages not only to the state and regional levels, but also
directly to local officials and citizen leaders whenever possible.
One technique that was especially successful in Verona,
Missouri, was the telephoning of local officials in advance of EPA
press releases, which prevented surprises and enabled the officials
to prepare themselves for the questions their constituents would be
raising after the release.
Federal officials must make sure local residents understand that
clean-up of the site will not resolve all problems. If groundwater
contamination has occurred, for example, contaminants will remain in
the aquifer for years to come. EPA will not completely resolve
long-term health questions but the appropriate health agency should,
in conjunction with EPA, perform any needed health studies and warn
affected residents and doctors of possible public health reactions
to exposure to migrating hazardous chemicals. These studies may
extend into the construction phase. Where appropriate, EPA and the
health agency should discuss health findings with the local populace
in person. Disseminating information on health effects by press
conference and official briefing only runs the risk of exaggeration
and misinterpretation of any health risks. In a personal meeting,
questions can be answered at once. Overall, EPA should advertise
its clean-up successes but emphasize the limits of the clean-up
outcome.
G.
Monitoring
Public Participation Aspect -- Evaluation of Process
After the completion of the active construction phase, EPA
should let the public and the media know the nature of the solution
and its limits. On initiating the 20-year monitoring period, the
agency should devote some effort to evaluating its interaction with
the local government, interest groups, and citizens during the site
response activities. This exercise will help prevent problems at
other sites; it will also suggest other ways to continue public
awareness at the completed site. Evaluation points to cover include:
(1)
At what points
government actions?
were
citizens
frustrated
with
( 2)
At what points was citizen impact disruptive to the
policy process?
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
H.
- 52 -
( 3)
How could participation mechanisms -- role of on-site
coordinator, number or quality of public information
meetings, pUblic hearings, workshops, etc., role of
citizens' advisory committee, involvement of local
gove rnment s, local ad hoc groups -- be improved to
avoid frustrations and problems?
( 4)
Were citizen expectations of EPA performance met? If
not, why were expectations too high or performance so
low?
(5)
What problems persist at the site?
resolved?
How are they being
(6 )
What are citizens' expectations of further
involvement? How will EPA meet those expectations?
EPA
(7)
What lessons can be learned -- good and bad -- from
EPA involvement with citizens and local government in
this site action?
Emergency Response
Public Participation Aspect -- Apprise Citizens and Local
Officials of Actions
There are two types of emergency response situations: 1)
those where a natural disaster forces immediate response, and 2)
those where slow leaking of hazardous materials causes an impending
but not immediate danger of human or environmental exposure.
In situations of the first type, agency resources should
concentrate fully on mitigating the imminent hazard. Larger or more
lengthy responses, however, often warrant a community
relations/media specialist on the on-scene staff to respond to
citizen and media questions. This would leave the OSC free to
respond to the technical aspects of the problem. However, the
on-scene coordinator should always interact in person with local
officials -- police, fire department, public health officials, and
the chief elected official -- particularly in those cases where
evacuation plans or other direct community involvement may be
necessary.
During smaller-scale hazardous waste emergencies, the on-scene
coordinator may be the only appropriate EPA official on site to
answer reporter and citizen questions. The technical
responsibilities of the OSC, however, will still involve most of his
or her time during the initial phase of the clean-up. When the
emergency response has progressed to the point where imminent danger
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 53 -
has passed, the coordinator should devote some time to public
outreach. An informal information meeting, briefing of officials,
field trip to the site, or press conference are possible vehicles to
answer citizen questions and concerns about how the site may affect
them.
Emergency responses of the second type generally are less
emergencies than temporary measures to contain a longer-term
threat. These actions usually follow a sampling program and other
site investigation activities. A contract bidding process may take
place to find an engineering firm to aid in the clean-up measures.
This type of emergency allows time for less impromptu community
relations. A small-group public consultation with opinion leaders,
a fact sheet, and an informal public information meeting as the
clean-up commences is appropriate to inform the community of EPA
actions and possibly to elicit local knowledge about the site
history which may be useful in shaping the temporary response
action. In both types of emergency responses, interviews with the
local press can often bring information to the public extremely
rapidly through a trusted source. .
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 54 -
CHAPTER IV:
FOUR CASE STUDIES
"THE VALLEY OF THE DRUMS"
BROOKS, KENTUCKY
INTRODUCTION
In March 1977, hexachlorocyclopentadiene (HEX) and
octachlorocyclopentene were discharged into the Louisville, Kentucky
municipal sewer system by Donald L. Distler of Kentucky Liquid
Recycling, Inc. During the EPA investigation of this incident,
various sites owned by or connected with Distler were inspected in
order to locate HEX sources. One of the sites discovered at that
time was a 13.68 acre farm owned by Distler's father, which
contained both surface and sub-surface drums of chemical wastes.
These, along with stream sediment, were sampled and photographed by
EPA and FBI investigators. No action was taken at this time at this
or the other identified Distler sites because of the legal action
pending against Distler for the Louisville HEX dumping.
Distler's conviction in the 1977 HEX incident was handed down in
December 1978, a time of heavy rains and flooding along the Ohio
River in Kentucky. The Distler farm, situated along Stump Gap
Creek, which ultimately feeds into the Ohio River, was inundated.
Eight hundred thirty drums containing hazardous substances were
floated from their original locations on the farm and deposited
throughout the Stump Gap Creek drainage area. On January 4, 1979,
EPA Region IV responded to the emergency, handling the situation
under authority of Section 311 of the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act.
While EPA was engaged in this emergency action, Kentucky
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
(KDNREP) representatives advised EPA's on-scene coordinator (OSC) of
the existence of another site several miles distant, known as the
"A.L. Taylor site", where thousands of drums were stored.
Accompanied by KDNREP and Emergency Response Team (ERT) personnel,
the OSC at Stump Gas Creek visited the A.L. Taylor property on
January 5, and was "appalled at the sight of drums stacked and
scattered" throughout the valley in a completely random manner. The
OSC estimated that the valley contained "100,000 drums of hazardous
substances above ground and an unknown quantity of drums and liquid
waste underground. A definite environmental crisis existed in this
valley. I Valley of the Drums'."
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 55 -
1.
CHRONOLOGY
The Valley site is located in Bulli tt County, Kentucky, just
outside the town limits of Brooks, six miles north of
Shepherdsville, the county seat. Bullitt County is a largely rural,
primarily blue-collar' "bedroom community" serving Jefferson County
and Louisville. The county population (currently 40,000) has
increased by almost twenty-eight percent in the past ten years. The
Taylor property covers twenty-three acres, five of which were used
for the disposal of drums containing hazardous wastes. It lies
between the L&N golf course and the Jefferson County line where it
abuts the Jefferson County Memorial Park, a wilderness area
frequently used by the Audubon Society.
A. L. Taylor leased rights to the property on August 26, 1967 by
entering into a contract with Gilbert E. Wooden, who on that date
purchased the land from J. H. Mitchell. The contract, while not
recorded, reportedly provided Taylor clearance from Wooden to
operate the A. L. Taylor Drum Cleaning Service on the site. The
property was conveyed to A. L. 'I'aylor by Gilbert E. and Charlene
Wooden on March 5, 1976.
On December 8, 1967, two KDNREP inspectors visited the Valley
site in response to a complaint by a neighbor of constant smoke from
burning materials on the property. They found the site burning and
the wastes improperly covered. They advised Taylor of the necessary
procedures for operating a sanitary landfill. Additional
inspections by KDNREP personnel on December 18, 1967, and April 8,
1968, confirmed that the site was still being improperly utilized.
However, there is no evidence of additional state action until 1975.
Residents of the area report that between 1967 and 1975, Taylor
operated a landfill for industrial and hazardous wastes, a junked
car operation, and a drum cleaning and disposal business. During
this period, they say, the hazardous waste operation consisted
largely of pouring the industrial wastes into pits and trenches
which were then covered with soil; drums, primarily containing
paint, oil and other industrial wastes, were emptied into Wilson
Creek, which runs through the property.
In November 1975, neighbors again complained to KDNREP about the
condition of the creek. One person had been forced to sell several
horses which had been using the creek for drinking water. Another
neighbor complained of his pigs coming away from the creek covered
with red paint. State officials visited the site ten times over the
next five months in preparation for a hearing on the case on April
23, 1976.
At this administrative hearing, Taylor was judged guilty of
various violations of the state's water-quality laws, including the
discharge of wastes into surface waters, the failure to report these
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 56 -
spills, and the failure to obtain a permit for the discharges. The
hearing officer neglected to issue a recommended order at that
time. "I just didn't do it, and I don't know why," the officer
reported. "It was an oversight on my part."
This oversight was rectified in August 1978. The recommendation
from the hearing officer to KDNREP at that time was that the site be
closed and fines totaling $3,000 be leveled against Taylor.
However, Taylor had died several months before the recommended order
was issued, so the order was never finalized by KDNREP.
During the 25-month interval between the hearing in April 1976
and his death in early 1978 Taylor increased the size and scope of
his operations at the Valley site. Several Louisville companies
hauled thousands of drums to the Valley site. KDNREP officials
inspected the site at least a dozen times during this period. State
investigators repeatedly forwarded recommendations to KDNREP
headquarters that the site be closed, citing deteriorating
conditions and increasing health and environmental hazards but
KDNREP management never acted on these recommendations.
Twice during this period, Taylor requested application materials
from KDNREP for a permit to dispose of non-hazardous wastes. The
department responded with the necessary materials, but Taylor never
submitted the applications. On November 14, 1977, the KDNREP
Non-Hazardous Waste Section notified Taylor that he was to "stop all
dumping immediately, provide for the proper disposal of all.
illegally deposited solid wastes", and prevent any additional
dumping. These orders from KDNREP were ineffectual.
The earliest knowledge EPA regional officials had of the Valley
site was its mention in a list of potentially hazardous disposal
sites prepared for EPA headquarters in October 1978. Information 00
the existence of the site, but not the extent of the contamination,
had been provided by a former employee of KDNREP.
EPA Region IV learned of the extent of the problem at the Valley
on January 5, 1979 when the OSC in charge of the emergency operation
at nearby Stump Gap Creek inspected the site. While this inspection
indicated that the problem was quite extensive (given the number and
disarray of the discarded drums), there was no active contamination
of surface waters at that time, and, therefore, under the law,
immediate emergency operation was precluded. The OSC from Stump Gap
Creek consequently advised EPA Region IV of the conditions at the
Valley and returned to the supervision of the existent emergency.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 57 -
Region IV notified headquarters of the potential for serious
environmental damage in the Louisville area. HQ dispatched a task
force to Region IV to discuss the Louisville sites, including the
Valley. Region IV officials worked closely with KD~~P personnel in
the development and initial execution of a plan of action to assess
the extent of the environmental damage at the site and to explore
possible remedies. Water samples and site histories were collected
and EPA Enforcement (ENF) dispatched attorneys to search court
records for additional lands owned by Taylor. A reconnaissance of
groundwater users within a one-mile radius of the site was conducted
by EPA (WSB), Kentucky Water Supply, and the Jefferson County Health
Department. Incineration criteria were proposed by EPA for the
possible destruction of the wastes and a tentative plan for
hydrological assessment was presented to KDNREP.
During February, ENF obtained consent from Taylor' s widow, to
whom the property had been willed, for joint EPA/KDNREP sampling.
The site was "staked" for coring in accordance with the topography
and hypothesized geologic and hydrologic conditions. Secretary
Eugene Mooney (KDNREP) met with regional division directors to
propose corrective actions which included the installation of an
incinerator at the site. KDNREP began negotiations with William
Fluhr, president of Liquid Processors, Inc., of Jefferson County, to
install and operate the incinerator. The incinerator being
considered had previously been owned by Donald Distler, who had
formerly attempted to operate the unit in Indiana.
During this period (January February, 1979), while EPA
officials and state representatives were actively developing plans
for long-term action at the site, local officials report that they
had no knowledge of any of these developments. Kentucky had assumed
primary respons-ibility for the development of these plans, sought
EPA I S assistance, involved neighboring Jefferson County officials;
but apparently never approached Bullitt County officials, within
whose jurisdiction the Valley is located.
On March 2, 1979, a KDNREP inspector notified the Region IV
Emergency Response Branch that oil and hazardous substances were
leaching into Wilson Creek from the drums located in the Valley.
Because of the actual contamination of surface waters, the Emergency
Response Branch responded under authority of Section 311 of the
Clean Water Act and dispatched an emergency response team.
During the two week emergency operation, sediment and surface
water samples were run and analyzed to determine the extent of
contamination. Kentucky, EPA, and Department of the Interior
biologists mapped and sampled the area. Leaking, non-leaking, and
empty drums were separated and several disposal pits were
discovered. Trenches were dug to intercept the lateral migration of
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 58 -
wastes and surface runoff was diverted to a holding pond. A
limestone and carbon filtration system was designed and installed in
Wilson Creek.
Water samples were collected from seven on-site drainage areas
to determine the presence of organic compounds. Those compounds
present in the highest concentrations were methylisobutyl ketone,
methylethyl ketone, acetone, xylenes, and toluene. No PCBs were
detected in any of the water samples. Sediment contamination
followed the same general pattern as in the water samples analyzed.
Organic compounds present in highest concentrations included
bis-2-ethylhexyl phthalate, xylene, toluene, acetone, and
ethylbenzene. Organics identified in the sediment were in the
parts-per-million range, while compounds in the wate r samples were
generally in the parts-per-billion. Two PCBs (Aroclor 1254 and
Aroclor 1260) were found at three sediment sampling sites at
concentrations of 0.67 mg/kg, 1.6 mg/kg and 14.0 mg/kg respectively.
On March 21, 1979, the emergency operation was concluded. The
emergency response was conducted under P. L. 91-500 Section 311 and
Section 3llK funds in excess of $290,000 were expended. These funds
covered the analyses of the materials noted above, the construction
of the temporary treatment facility, and provided for maintenance of
the treatment system for one year, including power supply and carbon
recharge. Any further action at the site would have to depend,
again, on the development of an action plan with the State of
Kentucky, a process which had been interrupted, in effect, by the
emergency operation.
By mid-March 1979, KDNREP had completed its analysis of the
soils and geography of the Taylor site and concluded that "the site
would be excellent for the disposal of hazardous wastes by
incineration or chemical treatment and with proper engineering would
be technically sound for burial also." The soils and geology
analysis had led to the conclusion that, a permanent waste disposal
operation should be established at the Valley site. KDNREP,
therefore, proposed an expanded action-plan for the site. In an
April 6, 1979 meeting with EPA, KDNREP outlined the existing
conditions at the site:
.
5,211 drums with contents, of which
2,658 contained solids or sludge;
1,838 contained liquids;
731 had unknown contents.
.
11,000 (approximate) empty drums, crushed and stacked.
.
161 drums empty and re-useable.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 59 -
Arguing that the remains in each of these categories could be
handled by conventional means, KDNREP proposed that EPA assist the
state in establishing the Fluhr incinerator at the Valley site as p
demonstration project for the proper disposal of hazardous wastes.
EPA regional officials noted that: (a) the state's inventory did
not account for possible sub-surface wastes; and (b) remaining
questions regarding the incinerator proposal would have to be
satisfactorily answered before EPA could approve the plan. The
meeting concluded without EPA endorsement of the proposed action.
On April 12, 1979, KDNREP announced that it would accept william
Fluhr's application for a permit to establish an incinerator, in
conjunction with a chemical recycling and barrel-cleaning operation,
at the Valley site. Fluhr had taken an option on the property
contingent on the ability of Taylor's widow to have the land rezoned
by county authorities for heavy industry. On April 16, 1979,
Bullitt County Fiscal Court, which must approve all zoning changes,
responded to a petition by local residents and indicated that it
would refuse to consent to the rezoning.
Since May 1979, KDNREP officials have been negotiating with the
major Louisville companies which purportedly produced most of the
identifiable wastes at the Valley site for the voluntary removal of
the material. At the time of this report, twenty to twenty-five
percent of the material was being voluntarily removed. The state
has threatened to initiate legal action against the companies if
voluntary measures prove to be insufficient. Except for these
current removal procedures, the Valley site remains as it was when
EPA clean-up operations were terminated on March 14, 1979. The
"temporary" filtration system remains in place. Most of the surface
drums are stacked in rows or piled (empty) in mounds. KDNREP
assures the maintenance of the status quo at the site by continually
monitoring it. -
II.
VISIBILITY OF THE CASE
The Valley of the Drums has become one of the most highly
publicized abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country. Its
notoriety sterns, in part, from its size, the magnitude of the
chemical deposits and, possibly, even its memorable name. It was
the sUbject of extensive media coverage newspaper, magazine,
television, and books -- particularly in the first half of 1979
during EPA clean-up operations. Area politicians have also made use
of the hazardous waste issue in the Valley for their campaign
platforms. Legislators at both the state and federal levels have
taken up the issue and have responded to citizen group concerns. In
general, the visibility of the case, while relatively low locally,
has been high nationally since January 1979.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 60 -
III.
ACTORS
Citizen Participation
A.
Active citizen participation was limited during the period
covered in the chronology to the anti-incinerator petition drive.
Several local citizens, prompted by media coverage of the proposal
to install the incinerator at the site, and operating independently,
began circulating petitions to be presented to the next meeting of
I
the Bullitt County Fiscal Court. The Court which is the county
executive body, rules on all zoning changes within its
jurisdiction. Petitions were circulated in at least three separate
areas of the county: Brooks, Hillview and Shepherdsville. At least
four individuals in Shepherdsville made separate efforts to contact
others in an attempt to organize the petition drive. As these
individuals became aware that they were all similarly involved, one
of them sought the assistance of a local attorney and drew up a
petition format to be used by the entire Shepherdsville-based
operation. This format was used in the majority of petition forms
ultimately presented to Fiscal Court, and opposed any "dump or . . .
incinerator. . . in Bullitt County for the disposal of chemical, or
other industrial waste."
The organizers of the petition drive traced the intensity of
their opposition as due to:
.
Mistrust of William Fluhr, the proposed operator of
the incinerator, because of his connections with
Donald Distler, from whom the unit was acquired;
.
Suspicion of the technical feasibility of the incinerator
plan based on newspaper reports of:
conflicting claims regarding
heat-generating capacity of the unit;
maximum
refusal by three other communities to accept the
uni t when Donald Distler previously attempted to
operate it;
.
Conviction that the site would become the repository
of wastes "from allover the country";
.
Resentment against Jefferson County and Louisville (as
the origin of the wastes) because of a perceived
continual encroachment on and disruption of life in
the more rural Bullitt County.
Members of one of the ad hoc groups from Hillview which were
circulating petitions contacted their local state representative and
requested that he present the petitions on their behalf to the
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 61 -
court. Prompted by the ad hoc groups, the state representative and
the county director of Emergency and Disaster Services fi~st
appeared before the Hillview City Council at the April 16 meeting
and received unanimous support for opposition to the incinerator
proposal. They subsequently presented the county-wide petitions to
Fiscal Court with 2,408 signatures. The court registered its
opposi tion to any zoning change at the A. L. Taylor site, even
though formal application for the change had not yet been made.
This action by Fiscal Court effectively terminated the state's plan
to install the incinerator. '
Copies of the petition were also forwarded to EPA Region IV and
to KDNREP but, since the petition drive had been successful from the
community's standpoint, the ad hoc groups dissipated and apparently
no further interaction between them and state or federal officials
took place.
For political reasons, however, the Valley appears to be
emerging once again as an issue in the county. State politicians
have attempted to use the Valley incident for their own purposes.
Legislators have held press conferences at the site and one
gubernatorial candidate entered the site, had campaign photographs
taken while seated on drums, and campaigned on a "This won't happen
if you elect me" platform. Incumbent county officials expect that
the Valley site will become an issue in the May 1981 primary
elections (which have more local import than the general election
because of the predominance of the Democratic Party in the county).
Several community groups have been formed since January 1980
which are attempting to capitalize on the Valley problem as the
primary election approaches. In Brooks, Hillview, Zonton, and Mount
Washington, these groups, formed around issues other than the
Valley, have adopted the Valley issue as a means of widening their
appeal. They are actively recruiting other groups in neigboring
communities. Issues of primary concern in each group include the
efficiency of county government, Fiscal Court salaries, road
conditions (exacerbated by heavy traffic to and from Jefferson
County), busing, local services, etc. But each of these community
groups has adopted the Valley issue as proof of the presumed
incompetence of the incumbent county administration. The Brooks
Citizens Council, for example, has sent letters to various state and
federal officials (including the President) indicating its concern
over the matter. At the time of our field investigation, the group
had received responses from Rep. Carroll Hubbard, Rep. Timothy Lee
Carter, KDNREP Secretary Swigart (via Jack Wilson) and State
Representative Frank L. Smith.
Ci tizen participation in the Valley issue appears to be a real
"grass rootsh phenomenon. Identified organizers of the petition
drive to halt the state's incinerator plan included several
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 62 -
housewives, the operator of a local construction company, a railroad
laborer, and a local postmaster. These organizers elicited the
assistance of their state representative and the county Director of
Emergency Planning in presenting their views to Hillview City
Council and their petitions to Fiscal Court. These officials,
howe~er, had not been involved in the organization of the petition
drive. Similarly, the newly-formed citizen groups which are
attempting to use the Valley issue to broaden their base of popular
support are headed by the manager of a local hardware store, a
retired engineer (who has also been a lobbyist for environmental
concerns in Frankfort), and several teachers. As with the ad hoc
groups which emerged to oppose the incinerator, these citizen groups
are pressuring elected officials for both information and action.
Letter-wri ting campaigns, phone calls to Frankfort and the county
seat, and an increasing number of meetings at which elected
officials are being asked to speak are the tactics currently
employed by these groups.
To summarize, interest groups developed on an ad hoc basis when
the state proposed the installation of an incinerator at the site,
defeated the proposal, and disappeared. Community groups unrelated
to the original ad hoc organizations have arisen as an ex post facto
phenomenon and, while primarily interested in other issues, have
adopted the Valley issue as a rallying point to attract additional
membership; these groups are now proselytizing in neighboring
cormnunities.
B.
Media Influence
Media attention to the Valley site was intense between January
and June 1979. In January 1979, EPA and KDNREP officials began
negotiations for the development of an action-plan to deal with the
situation. Aware of these activities, two Louisville
Courier-Journal reporters began an exhaustive series on hazardous
wastes in general and gave special attention to the Valley. Their
newspaper articles reported the twenty-eight month delay in the
issuance of the recommended order from the administrative hearing
officer to close the site, the fact that KDNREP had known of the
illegal dumping at the site as early as 1967, the history of citizen
complaints to KDNREP regarding the site, and the state's unexplained
inaction at the Valley during 1977-78 despite repeated visits to the
site by state officials and investigators. These disclosures, in
turn, prompted national media coverage (New York Times, CBS, ABC).
The Courier-Journal's coverage--both of the Valley and of the
hazardous waste disposal problem in general--was praised unanimously
by EPA Region IV officials. The newspaper published a twenty-page
special report entitled "Warning: Toxic Waste" in December 1979 as
a supplement. This report received several journalism awards, was
lauded by EPA and local (county) officials, but was branded "yellow
journalism" by KDNREP personnel.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 63 -
Regional television stations in Louisville ran several specials
on the Valley and other Bullitt, Jefferson, and Hardin County sites
during the first several months of 1979. These quickly decreased in
frequency when EPA clean-up operations at Stump Gap Creek and the
Valley site were completed. Local citizens reported that the
televised publicity at the time was instrumental in collecting the
2,400 signatures on the anti-incinerator petition.
IV. COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
EPA and state officials have disseminated informtion primarily
through the media: there has been little or no contact with local
elected officials. Prior to the activation of the RRT for the
emergency action, (i.e., between January 5, when EPA first inspected
the site and March 2, when emergency operations began), EPA and
KDNREP cooperated closely in the preparation of a site action plan.
During this period, a reconnaissance of groundwater users within a
one-mile radius of the site was conducted, a tentative plan for
hydrological assessment was developed, consent was obtained from
Mrs. Taylor for EPA and state personnel to collect samples, a
detailed monitoring plan was developed, the Valley was staked,
William Fluhr's application to install and operate an incinerator at
the site was received-and evaluated, and water and sediment samples
were obtained by S&A within the site boundaries. These were normal
operating procedures characterized by full cooperation between EPA
and the state. At no time during this two-month period were local
(county) officials informed of the actio~s.
During the emergency operation, the Public Information Assist
Team (PlAT) established a communications center at a local motel in
the county seat, contacted the media, provided them with twenty-four
hour telephone- numbers from which updated information could be
obtained and provided on-site inspection for reporters. The members
of the PlAT reported that they did not, however, initiate any
contacts with local (county) officials, and were unaware of any such
contacts being made. In fact, on separate occasions, the Chairman
of the RRT and the OSC each assigned the responsibility for such
contact to one of the members of the RRT. Apparently. however,
those contacts were not made, beause county officials claim to have
had no contact at all with the RRT and no access to information
regarding the site beyond what was provided by the media.
within forty-eight hours of the conclusion of the $290,000
clean-up operations, EPA staff reviews of the incinerator plan had
been completed. Evaluations, recommendations, and additional
questions to be answered by Liquid Processors, Inc., were forwarded
to the KDNREP Division of Air Pollution (though it could not be
determined whether these questions were ever satisfactorily
answered) . The Louisville Courier-Journal, in the meantime, had
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 64 -
printed that the incinerator plan was under consideration. Thus,
while county officials were left in the dark about EPA and KDNREP
planning, local citizens, prompted by the media's disclosure of the
Fluhr proposal, moved to block installation of the incinerator. Had
county officials been kept aware of developments at the state and
federal levels, conflict might have been significantly reduced.
There is no way to determine, now, if improved communication
between EPA, state, and county officials would have lead to the
installation of the incinerator and the establishment at the Valley
site of a permanent disposal facility. However, there are clear
indications that information dissemination could have been improved,
and, according to county. officials, that at least a portion of the
proposed plan would have been acceptable to the county. While EPA
Region IV had posed some question about the specific incinerator
proposal being considered by the state, the concept of incineration
at the site was judged to be technically feasible. In addition, the
state's analysis of the site indicated that it would be technically
acceptable as a permanent disposal site. The local citizens who
organized the anti-incincerator drive were primarily concerned about
the technical feasibility of the Fluhr incinerator and mistrusted
Fluhr's association with Donald Distler; they reported that their
principal concern was with that particular proposal, not with the
idea of incineration. County officials, in turn, perceived
practical benefits for the county in the establishment of a
permanent disposal facility at the site. These factors indicate
bhat close attention to information dissemination to local citizens
and officials is necessary if any long-term solution is to have a
chance of succeeding. The disclosure by the media, however, of a
single solution, about which local citizens and officials had been
unaware, galvanized immediate opposition to the proposal in the
Valley case. interviews with local citizens and officials which
support these conclusions include:
.
The local county attorney, in a memorandum prepared
for the Chief Judge Executive of the Bullitt County
Fiscal Court, decried the politicization of the
incinerator question and the lack of information
provided to county government. He noted that "County
Government could act more responsive (ly) by possibly
permitting the rezoning of this area and the use of an
incinerator to destroy the waste deposited on this
farm. Local government should also consider the
location of a permanent hazardous waste landfill in
Bullitt County, Kentucky due to our close proximity to
a large metropolitan area."
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 65 -
.
The state Representative who presented the petition to
Fiscal Court opposing the Fluhr incinerator plan also
indicated during an interview that he potentially
favored incineration at the site. He noted, however,
that it was not politically feasible to support
Fluhr's proposal.
.
There was no attempt to counter local residents' fears
of groundwater contamination. The geological
indications supplied by the state are, however, that
the Valley site would be an excellent secure landfill,
but this information was never communicated to
citizens or local authorities. None of the local
authorities or citizens interviewed knew of the
state's study.
.
Local opposition to the proposed incinerator plan was
clearly linked to Donald Distler, who had previously
attempted, and failed, to install the same incinerator
at other locations. (One respondent noted that the
residents feared that Fluhr might "Distlerize" Bullitt
County. )
.
Because EPA and KDNREP evaluations of the incinerator
proposal were never communicated to local officials,
the assertion in the local media that "Distler's
incinerator" was incapable of generating sufficient
temperatures to handle the disposal problem was
accepted at face value. This assertion, in turn, was
cited by local organizers of the anti-incinerator
proposal as a key factor in their decision to object
to the plan.
These considerations indicate that: (a) if EPA and state
officials had more actively included the county in their
deliberations ~ and (b) if information available to EPA and KDNREP
had been disseminated to the local population, the county may have
accepted the establishment at the Valley site of some form of
incineration in a permanent disposal op~ration.
Interviews with local residents and officials also indicate that
a continuing program of public information dissemination is needed
in Bullitt County, beyond that which could have applied to the
incinerator proposal. County residents continue to request
information from a host of elected officials, some of whom have no
involvement in the site. This shows that the citizens are unsure of
a credible source of information, and are seeking assurances from
diverse sources. At the time of our interviews, the local situation
could be characterized as one of confusion and mistrust:
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 66 -
.
General confusion regarding the current status of the
Valley site:
residents expressed the belief that Kentucky now
plans to "import waste from allover the U.S.,"
"ship all the barrels to New Jersey" or "do
nothing -- they're just going to leave it there";
local officials offered to "include the press"
when meeting with the investigators for this
report because these investigators were the
"first EPA" people they had met. These officials
hypothesized that our investigators were on-scene
to announce an EPA "solution."
.
General mistrust of KDNREP expressed by local
residents based on the department's 'inaction prior to
1979 and on its subs~quent approval of the Fluhr
incinerator proposal;
V.
EFFECTS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
While the immediate result of public participation in this case
was the refusal of the Bulli t t County Fiscal Court to approve the
zoning change necessary for the installation of the Fluhr
incinerator at the site, additional factors must be considered in
assessing the public's role. For example, constituency pressures on
county officials served to postpone, rather than effect, a solution
to the problem. These same officials, however, were not provided
any assistance, information, or consideration by either state or
federal personnel.
Citizen interaction with KDNREP in this case consists of a
history of departmental unresponsiveness. Internal departmental
problems including jurisdictional disputes, a lack of sufficient
technical personnel, and an apparent inability to expend state
monies because of a lack of legislative authorization contributed to
KDNREP's inaction. State personnel are farther removed from the
affected constituency than local officials and, consequently, may
sometimes be unable to attend to a particular problem because of
departmentally established priorities. When asked about the
department's lack of response to contacts initiated by local
residents regarding the site, one state official noted: "That's not
public participation, that's just a complaint." It does appear,
however, that the recent appointment of a new Secretary to KDNREP
who previously served on the environmental quality commission and
who is committed to effective citizen participation in all elements
of state government may change this attitude.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 67 -
EPA officials, while concerned with public participation,
limited their contacts, in this case, to the media. Because the
media did not report complete information -- e.g., the media had no
acess to EPA's evaluation of the incineration proposal -- the public
reacted negatively. One member of the Coast Guard Public
Information Assist Team who served at the site during the emergency
operation remarked that the practice of dealing exclusively with the
media may be shortsighted. The facts in the Valley case would
appear to confirm this judgment.
It is also clear that the inadequacy of communication problems
documented here are more extensive than not providing information to
the public and local officials. Some confusion persists at the
state level regarding EPA activities. Although EPA Region IV
management was informed of the initiation of emergency actions at
the site by the chairman of the RRT, this information was not passed
on to KDNREP management. At the operating level, EPA regional
personnel reported that they consistently stressed the limited
authority under which Section 311 emergency operations are permitted
to proceed, but state officials remain convinced that the agency
could have "done more." KDNREP officials claimed that EPA's actions
at the site were limited because they "wanted to use the publicity
in order to effect passage of Superfund." Even the terminology
employed at the federal and state levels differs, and in a way
reveals the differences between EPA and Kentucky officials: the
former refer to the site as the "Valley of the Drums", while the
latter consistently speak of the "A. L. Taylor site": EPA officials
note the effectiveness of the temporary treatment facility and the
"clean-up operation", while state personnel refer to the action as a
"partial clean-up," or a "straightening-up operation." Under
existing legislation, EPA's role was limited to the prevention of
surface water contamination, but state personnel consider this to be
almost inconsequential. As one official noted: "The major
accomplishment of the activities to date at the Taylor site consists
almost entirely of the publicity given the U.S. EPA for the
establishment and the need for 'Superfund' legislation."
The history of the A. L. Taylor site, according to local
residents, must be viewed with due consideration to their
long-standing feud with the former owner. Residents report that Mr.
Taylor previously operated a landfill at a different location
(although the location remains unconfirmed) which they succeeded in
shutting down before his operation at the current property.
Apparently, Mr. Taylor was considered by the local residents to have
absolutely no regard for the community or for the effect of his
operations on the environment. Numerous instances were cited in
which Mr. Taylor sidestepped local prosecution through a series of
legal maneuvers. Judicial officials confirmed that previous
attempts to prosecute Taylor were largely unsuccessful. Now some
residents report that they do not expect Taylor's widow to be
cooperative in effecting a solution to the problem either.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 68 -
VI. SUMMATION
The rejection by the local community of tHe Fluhr incinerator
proposal demonstrates what can happen when plans are drafted by one
level of government without consultations with those who will be
affected by the plans. In this case, the state released the
proposal to the media, but local political leaders had no advance
information on the proposal and were thus forced to rely on media
coverage. Since' the media coverage did not present all of the facts
(through no particular fault of the newsmen), the local citizens'
fears about the past activities of the people involved in the
incinerator led to a rejection of the plan.
Under the Superfund program, it is possible that EPA could help
include local authorities in the decision-making process. For
example, while the responsibility for contacting local officials was
delegated to a member of the RRT, that responsibility was not
discharged. In a similar situation under the Superfund program, the
absence of local representatives at a meeting of the RRT should
serve as a "red flag" to the OSC that local authorities may have to
be more actively encouraged to participate. Local representation,
in this case, would at least have provided an avenue of
communication between the various levels of government.
The Valley case also demonstrates how much important information
can be learned by investigating the politics of a local area prior
to the proposal of a solution to a hazardous waste problem. If EPA
or the State had been able to anticipate the emergence of citizen
opposition and the receptivity of local government, and addressed
these concerns, some variant of the incinerator proposal may have
been accepted. The lesson here for Superfund is that as much
information as possible about the local political situation should
be gathered by the Agency prior to the generation of a proposed
solution. Thus, the Valley provides considerable insight into the
degree of cooperation and communication which will be necessary for
a successful Superfund program.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 69 -
THE STRINGFELLOW DISPOSAL SITE
RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
INTRODUCTION
The Stringfellow site consists of a series of artificial ponds
that had been used for the disposal of hazardous waste for some 16
years. It has been closed to additional wastes since 1972. While
the site had been beset with problems since it began operation,
three consecutive years of heavy winter rains have increased the
severity of these problems greatly since 1978. That, in turn, has
led to a sharp increase in the intensity of the surrounding
community's reaction. Though local citizens had conducted organized
opposition to the site from the time it opened, the issue carne to a
head in 1980.
The central interest of this case lies in the dynamics of the
citizens' groups active in the surrounding community. In spite of
general agreement about how best to resolve the problem, the two
principal groups differ significantly with respect to their length
of involvement, their membership, their methods, their attitudes
towards the political process, and their overall political
objectives. The combined effect of local citizens on policy in this
case was substantial and has important implications for the conduct
of programs to respond to hazardous waste incidents.
1.
CHRONOLOGY
A.
The Site
The Stringfellow Class-I Disposal Site was established in
1955 and began operation in 1956. It was managed by the J. B.
Stringfellow Quarry Company. The site occupies approximately
seventeen acres in Pyrite Canyon in the Jurupa Mountains just north
of Highway 60 (the Pomona Freeway). It lies 400 feet in elevation
above the residential area of Glen Avon located in the valley two
miles below. The site's close proximity to the Pomona Freeway
provides easy access to the area.
In 1961 the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board
(RWQCB) adopted a resolution updating waste discharge requirements.
The resolution added new rules for storm water diversion, routine
monitoring of a nearby well, and self-monitoring of the well by the
operator four times a year.
In 1969 heavy rains fell in the area.
runoff produced overflows, washing waste out
residential area south of the Pomona Freeway.
Stringfellow Company to cease taking waste
The resulting storm
of the site into the
The RWQCB asked the
until the darn and
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 70
.;
drainage works could be repaired and made capable of controlling the
runoff created by a once-in-a-100 year storm. Company officials
immediately responded to the request to the apparent satisfaction of
regional officials, and dumping was subsequently resumed.
In the spring of 1972 it was found that increased leachate from
the pond area had produced high levels of dissolved materials in the
groundwater in the monitoring wells immediately below the site.
Hexavalent chromium, nitrates, salts, and higher conductivities were
present in the wells. In May 1972 a sample from the water supply
well for the Glen Avon School contained a small amount of hexavalent
chromium. The incident received considerable media coverage. This
finding alarmed the community, but was later attributed to the
surface flooding, not groundwater contamination. In November 1972,
the owners responded to financial and public pressures by closing
down the site.
In 1978, because of recent heavy rains and the possible overflow
or rupturing of the dam, James Anderson, the Executive Officer of
the RWQCB and a member of the Board I s staff, ordered the discharge
of acid wastes from the site. Over a five day period, more than one
million gallons of waste water were released into Glen Avon drainage
channels, and some of the waters flooded the backyards adjacent to
the channels. Law enforcement officials stood guard along the
running water's path to ensure public safety. In addition,
approximately one and a half million gallons were hauled away to
another Class-I disposal site. Note that the flood control channel
empties into the Santa Ana River which is ultimately used for
drinking water.
Heavy rains again fell in the area in 1979 and 1980. In 1979
the RWQCB increased recycle pumping and removed over one million
gallons to other Class-I disposal sites in Southern California. In
March 1980, a-t the request of the Regional Response Team (RRT) ,
officials from the Environmental Protection Agency's regional office
(Region IX) and the United States Coast Guard Strike Team were
brought on to the site to abate flooding, overflow, and leachate
conditions. The intensive twelve day operation was financed with
311k funds. Leaders and citizens report that the operation was well
managed and highly successful. The total amount spent was just
under $300,000.*
*Since the Stringfellow site visit for this report, a second section
311 action ($380 thousand) was undertaken in August 1980 to reduce
the liquids in the ponds and to increase the holding pond capacity.
The.RWQCB has also made some site improvements.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 71 -
On July 2, 1980, the RWQCB recommended to the State Water
Resources Control Board (State Board) complete removal of the
Stringfellow site. The estimated cost of removal was placed at $14
million. On July 17, 1980, the State Board decided to allocate $4
million for cleaning up the site. State Board officials hope that
EPA will contribute the additional funds needed to remove the dump.
CUrrently, the site contains thirty-two million gallons of toxic
wastes. To the dismay of area residents, the liquid in the ponds
has been aerosolled over the years in order to hasten evaporation.
While in operation the site received large quantities of sulfuric,
ni tric, and hydrochloric acids as well as heavy metals, organic
solvents, and pesticides from industries located in Nevada and
California. Waste disposers included steel and aluminum firms,
aerospace industries, chemical producers, and agricultural
concerns. A four month study by the Hazardous Materials Laboratory
of the State Department of Health Services found that the soil where
the overflow in 1978 had collected (about three miles from the site)
was contaminated with chromium, manganese, zinc, lead, and cadmium
that exceeded normal levels by 100 to 300 percent.
Although the surrounding area is rural, it has grown
considerably the last few years. Many people are moving into the
community from nearby Orange County. Residential subdivisions have
been built within one and a half miles immediately downstream from
the site. Glen Avon residents tend to be lower middle class.
Public Participation
B.
Public activism against the Stringfellow site began almost
immediately after it was opened in 1956. The Parents of Jurupa, led
by Ruth Kirkby; have telephoned and written countless letters to
local, state, and federal officials demanding that something be done
about the site. Over the years they have held a large number of
public and group meetings concerning the disposal area. Many
believe the Parents of Jurupa was responsible for the site's closure
in 1972. The group was incorporated in 1973, and presently has a
core membership of about twenty people.
After the disposal site ceased operation, the group remained
active. For instance, in January 1973 the Stringfellow Company
submitted a report prepared by their consulting engineers which
stated that the degradation of the groundwater in a nearby well was
the result of surface runoff from the site caused by storms during
the spring of 1969. The report stated that with the improvements of
the storm drainage facilities and the seepage control at the dam
area, no further waste should escape from the site. In June 1973
the RWQCB established new waste discharge requirements providing
additional protection for the waters of the state. One month later
the Parents of Jurupa filed a petition with the State Board stating
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 72 -
that the actions of the RWQCB were imprope r and inappropriate. A
State Board hearing was held in Riverside regarding the petition by
the citizens' group in March 1974. In June the State Board denied
the petition but added an amendment specifying additional operating
procedures to be implemented at the site. However, the Riverside
County Board of Supervisors, at a public hearing in November 1974,
revoked the land use variance originally issued to the Stringfellow
Company in 1955. The Board of Supervisors declared the site a
public nuisance, and ended all attempts to reopen the area for
dumping. This was a major victory for Ruth Kirby and the Parents of
Jurupa. The group continues to lobby public officials for more
scientific study of the area and complete removal of the site.
In December 1979 another citizens' group, the Concerned
Neighbors in Action (CNA), became involved in the controversy. This
group was organized by the California Campaign for Economic
Democracy (CED), an activist organization headed by Tom Hayden.
Like the Parents of Jurupa, CNA favors complete removal of the
site. In fact, many of its members once belonged to the Parents of
Jurupa. The major difference between the two organizations is that
CNA has adopted a more visible and assertive strategy in bringing
thei r demands to local, state, and federal agencies. The group
hopes to increase its influence by attracting as much media coverage
as possible. It has a core membership of about fifteen citizens.
Penny Newman is the leader of the organization.
Beginning in December 1979 Jeffrey Robinson, a CED organizer,
went door-to-door in the community with the first members of CNA,
trying to enlist support and enlarge the size of the new group.
During January and February 1980 about six house meetings were held
to: (1) define the issues, (2) decide what the organization's goals
would be, and -(3) select a way to attain those goals. They then
went door-to-door again distributing leaflets announcing a public
meeting to be held on March 25 at the Jurupa Community Center.
Advertisements were also placed in the local newspapers. The West
Riverside County Businessmen's Association co-sponsored the
meeting. Each of the approximately 175 people attending the meeting
was asked to place his or her name, address, and telephone number on
a sheet of paper. A large "telephone tree" was developed from this
list of names. People were contacted by CNA members and urged to
attend a public hearing called by the RWQCB on July 2 in the City of
Riverside. The same strategy was later used to inform people about
a public meeting to be held at the Jurupa Community Center on July
15. During this time three CNA committees were formed: (1)
clean-up, (2) health survey, and (3) public hearing. The group has
also written a considerable number of letters to local, state, and
federal officials urging removal of the Stringfellow site. Some
have written letters outlining their maladies possibly due to the
site. Like the Parents of Jurupa, CNA enjoys the public support of
other community organizations in the area.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 73 -
with the help of CED, the group was a major force at the July 2,
1980, public hearing convened by the RWQCB. The purpose of the
hearing was to review alternatives for abatement of the problems at
the Stringfellow site. A list of six alternatives was prepared by
James M. Montgomery, Consulting Engineers, Incorporated. James
Anderson recommended, among other things, removing liquid from the
site and placing a clay cover over the pond area (Alternative 2).
This alternative would cost over two million dollars. Yet a large
turnout of about sixty parents and children carrying signs and
representing CNA were able to persuade the Board to recommend
complete removal of the site to another location (Alternative 6).
Complete removal would cost at least fourteen million dollars. As
previously mentioned, the State Board agreed on July 7 to allocate
four million dollars for the clean-up effort.
CNA held its own public meeting on July 15, an event which was
fairly well attended. About ninety people heard Tom Hayden, Lois
Gibbs (President of the Love Canal Homeowners Association), and
Penny Newman speak about the dangers of toxic wastes. Gibbs also
showed slides of Love Canal. An aide to Congressmen George Brown
and several members of the press attended the meeting.
CNA was also successful in persuading the Riverside County
Department of Public Health to conduct blood tests for sixteen
adults and fourteen children. Blood samples were taken July 14 and
15, 1980 and produced no abnormal results. A large health survey,
designed by Gary Spivey, Professor of Epidemiology at the University
of California, Los Angele~, will be conducted in the fall.
On two occasions, area legislators held public meetings to bring
information about the site into the open. Representative George
Brown held the- first public meeting in the Glen Avon community.
Formerly, all hearings were in downtown Riverside. A number of
state and regional water and air officials spoke about the
Stringfellow site problem on September 9, 1978, five months after
the flooding of the wastewater. Residents of the surrounding
communities, notably Parents of Jurupa members, also voiced their
concerns. Most recently, State Senator Robert Presley, who has been
instrumental in appropriating special state funds for Stringfellow
clean-up, held a public meeting on August 16, 1980. The EPA Region
IV hazardous waste contact person, representatives from the State
Board and Department of Health, and regional and county officials
presented the facts of the Stringfellow site as they understood them
and answered questions from area residents.
II. VIS!BILITY OF THE CASE
During July 1980 major community leaders and citizen actors in
the Stringfellow controversy were interviewed. Leaders and citizens
were asked how visible the issue was compared to other issues in the
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 74 -
community. A large majority of people felt that it was one of the
most prominent issues in the community. The problem was
particularly visible when heavy rains fell in 1969, 1978, 1979, anp
1980. During the first two times the ponds containing toxic wastes
overflowed, and the overflow posed a threat to the community.
Public officials report they were inundated by letters, telephone
calls, and petitions urging them to action. Media coverage was also
exceptionally high during these periods.
III.
ACTORS
A.
Agencies
1.
Local
A number of local agencies have been involved in the
controversy. The Jurupa Community Services District, which manages
the area's water supply, has demonstrated continued concern about
the disposal site due to flooding, leaching, and the possible
contamination of the water supply. William Huckle, the General
Manager of the district's office, has testified at a number of
public hearings called by the RWQCB. The Riverside County Planning
Commission approved a zoning variance in 1955, laying the way for
the establishment of the site. Until 1974 the Riverside County
Board of Supervisors had been involved in overseeing the operation
of the site. On the legal advice of the State Attorney General and
its own counsel, the Board relinquished all responsibility after
1974. The Riverside County Department of Public Health, however,
has continuously kept a watchful eye on the area for possible health
problems. In conjunction with state health officials, the
Department sponsored blood tests of thirty community residents
thought to be most affected by the site. A large health survey will
be administered in the fall.
2.
Regional
The South Coast Air Quality Management District
(SCAQMD), an autonomous agency created by the state, conducted air
and soil samples around the pond area in the fall of 1978. The
state, which now owns the site, was cited for violating the agency's
Rule 403 regarding fugitive dust levels. No action has been taken
thus far. In addition, the Regional Response Team, which is
comprised of regional EPA, United States Coast Guard, and other
interested federal and state agencies, agreed to provide 311K funds
for the site's clean-up in March 1980.
3.
State
Several state agencies have also entered the
Stringfellow controversy. The Santa Ana RWQCB has been the primary
body involved in the conflict since dumping commenced in 1956. It
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 75 -
adopted major oversight responsibility in 1975. The State Water
Resources Control Board, the Regional Board's parent agency, has
agreed to follow the recommendations of the RWQCB on a number of
occasions. In July 1976, for instance, the State Board funded a
major engineering study of the site at the Regional Board's
request. From time to time, the State Board has appropriated money
for the clean-up of the pond area. In addition, the Hazardous Waste
Management Section of the State Department of Health Services
conducted a comprehensive study of the chemical content of the ponds
and the surrounding soil in late 1978. The study's findings were
released in March 1979. State health officials have also helped
Riverside County health officials investigate the possible ill
effects of the site on the community. Both the state health
off icials and wate r off icials have called Stringfellow the state's
number one hazardous waste problem. The National Guard was called
in during the heavy rains of 1978 to help sandbag the area. In May
1980 the State Department of Fish and Game voiced its concern about
the site's potential impact on the region's fish and wildlife in a
letter to the RRT. Finally, Governor Brown created the Toxic
Substances Coordinating Council to advise him on toxic waste
problems in the state. The Stringfellow site was discussed at the
Council's meeting in August 1980.
4.
Federal
The regional EPA office and the united States Coast
Guard joined forces in March 1980 to correct overflow, flooding, and
leachate conditions brought on by heavy rains in the area. A
considerable number of water samples were taken. Also, the Army
Corps of Engineers inspected the site and made recommendations to
the OSC during this time. The national EPA office dispatched a
media specialist for the first two days of the operation. Finally,
in June 1980 a high ranking official from the EPA headquarters
telephoned State Senator Robert Presley, the district's
representative, to tell him that funds for the site's clean-up would
become available once the RRT recommended a method of clean-up.
There is reason to think that Presley told the State Board about his
conversation with EPA headquarters. This may explain why the State
Board (at its July 17, 1980 meeting) only allocated four million
dollars instead of the fourteen million dollars needed to remove the
site.
B.
Interest Groups
1.
Ad Hoc Groups
Parents of Jurupa was the first citizen group to
become involved in the Stringfellow issue and the group has remained
active since 1957. Members of the Parents of Jurupa tend to be at
least middle aged and long-time residents of the Glen Avon area.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 76 -
Most are middle class homeowners. They are more knowledgeable than
average citizens on topics such as geology, chemistry, and
hydrology, especially as these subj ects relate to the Stringfellow
site. Their primary concern is for their own health and the health
of their neighbors. Maintaining property values may be a secondary
concern. In general, the Parents of Jurupa prefer to use
traditional methods of political participation to bring about change.
Many officials interviewed feel this group is, for the most
part, "level headed" and "realisitic." Some believe Ruth Kirby, the
group's leader, has been too vocal emotional about the possible
dange r s posed by the site. Othe r s thin k that she has neve r been
given a fair hearing, and that her demands for more rigorous
scientific study of the area have never been seriously considered.
All agree that she is an extremely bright and persistent woman who
has contributed a great deal of time over the years to further her
cause.
Members of Concerned Neighbors in Action tend to have lived in
the community a shorter time. They are likely to be young
housewives with young children. Their greatest fear is for the
health of their children -- a fear which drove them, in a very short
time, to collect 2200 signatures on a petition calling for the
removal of the site. Older residents and local officials consider
them to be emotional and very impatient. They believe they must put
pressure on the political system in order to achieve their goals.
This characteristic more than any other distinguishes the two
citizens I organizations. For the most part, the Parents of Jurupa
and CNA are single issue groups.
Campaign for Economic Democracy. headed by Torn Hayden, first
entered the Stringfellow controversy in December 1979. CED is a
professional and grass-roots political organization with a specific
ideological cast. Its members desire more democracy within the
economic and industrial sphere. They claim that while corporate
executives prosper through the use of advanced technologies, the
general population contracts cancer and other debilitating diseases
as a result of increased chemical pollution. CED members tend to be
young, liberal, and possess considerable political savvy. They know
how to organize citizens at the grass roots level and to attract and
shape media coverage. Their skill is evident from the role they
played in the Stringfellow conflict.
According to CED, Governor Brown requested Hayden to investigate
the Stringfellow site as part of his duties as a member of the
Southwest Border Regional Commission. It is interesting to note
that recently State Senator Presley, who has worked on abating the
site, successfully sponsored a bill giving the Senate veto power
over Governor Brown's appointment of Hayden to the Commission.
While the site is in Presley's district, the headquarters of CED is
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 77 -
in Santa Monica seventy miles away from the area. Many of those
interviewed believed Hayden and his group became involved in the
controversy to further their own political cause through the media
coverage they knew they would get. Others maintain that Hayden and
his group became involved because they wanted to help the citizens
of Glen Avon improve their situation.
2.
Community Groups
In addition to the Parents of Jurupa and CNA, a number
of othe r community groups have publicly supported removal of the
site. They include: Crime Watch, Pedley Women's Club, Jurupa
Junior Womel) , s Club, Glen Avon Women's Club, Glen Avon PTA, Glen
Avon Babysitting Cooperative, and the West Riverside County
Businessmen's Association. The latter group had originally
supported continued operation of the site. There is some
overlapping membership among the different groups.
3.
Industrial Representatives
Representatives from the Benjamin K. Kasarian Company
(BKK) have testified at several hearings regarding their willingness
and ability to accept contaminated earth and liquid waste from the
Stringfellow site. BKR operates a Class-I disposal site in West
Covina, the closest one to the Glen Avon area. A number of
questions about the site's complete removal still remain unresolved
including the energy, environmental, and economic costs involved,
the logistics of such a large operation, and the attitudes of West
Covina residents toward such a policy.
4.
Political Involvement
State Senator Robert Presley and Assemblyman Walter
Ingalls have also played a role in the Stringfellow issue. In 1977
they both worked together to introduce and pass a bill in the state
legislature appropriating $370,000 for partial clean-up of the
site. Since then they have acted together to find ways to abate the
site. In December 1979 Presley chaired a Senate subcommittee
hearing in the City of Riverside on toxic wastes. The Stringfellow
problem was addressed a t the hearing. Recently. he successfully
co-sponsored a measure restricting the building and selling of homes
on hazardous waste dumps. He has been a member of the State Senate
for over sixteen years and has been the most active elected official
in the conflict.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 78 -
C.
Media
1.
Print
The Stringfellow controversy has been given
considerable attention by the local and regional newspapers. The
Riverside Press Enterprise, the Riverside City Record (a weekly
newspaper), and the San Bernardino Sun Telegram have followed the
issue closely, and have printed many news articles on the topic.
The Los Angeles Times, with a circulation of over one million
readers, has also reported on several events pertaining to the
disposal site. In fact, a long feature article by Joy Horowitz of
the Times in May 1979 alerted leaders, citizens, and CED members to
the possible dangers of the dump. Overall, the issue has received
substantial coverage in the newspapers. In other publications, the
Stringfellow site was included in a New West magazine story on
hazardous waste sites, and the site was featured in Michael Brown's
book, Laying Waste, Pantheon Books, 1980.
2.
Broadcast
The same can be said about the local television and
radio stations. The local affiliates of the three major networks,
KNXT (CBS), KNEC, and KABC have each covered the conflict. The
science reporter for KNXT visited the site and collected soil
samples for testing by an independent laboratory. The results of
the analysis were different from those of previous studies by local
and state agencies. These divergencies were part of a special
week-long report on the site. KNBC just completed a week-long
report on the toxic waste problem in California and included the
Stringfellow dump in its investigation. Channel 13 (KCOP), an
independent te"levision station, has also covered the events
surrounding the site. Finally: the local radio stations, including
KCAL (in Redlands) and KPRO (in Riverside), have given the topic a
lot of air time.
IV. COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
A.
Source of Information
1.
Credibili ty
There are a number of information sources that public
officials and citizens accept as credible. They include the
national and regional EPA offices, the United States Coast Guard,
the SWRCB, the Hazardous Materials Management Section of the State
Department of Health Services, the SCAQMD, the RRT, the Riverside
County Department of Health, and the Jurupa Community Services
District. The local citizens also felt that the print and broadcast
media have supplied them with credible information Several local
leaders, however, expressed dismay over a news report by KNXT.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 79 -
After cOllecting and testing soil samples from the Stringfellow
site, a KNXT reporter showed the results of the station's study to
James Anderson of the RWQCB while on camera. Without prior notice
Anderson was asked to explain why the county's and state I s test
results were different from those of the station. KNXT later
refused to share its findings with anyone. Interestingly, this
incident attracted additional media coverage in the region.
Several local officials and active citizens have questioned the
credibility of the information provided by James Anderson. His own'
credibili ty on this issue is believed to be low because of his
attempt to reopen the site in 1973, his decision to discharge over
one million gallons of liquid from the pond area into the drainage
channels of Glen Avon during the heavy rains of 1978, and his
staff's recommendation at the July 2, 1980 public hearing to remove
the liquid from the ponds and place a clay cover over the
contaminated area. He has also maintained over the years that the
darn at the site was securely keyed to the bedrock. Anderson and his
staff may have placed too much trust in the assertions by the
Stringfellow Company that the site was resistant to leakage. Lack
of adequate- funding to ensure proper maintenance of the pond area
has also been a problem which makes Anderson's position more
difficult.
2.
Control over Information
No evidence was found to indicate that information had
ever been withheld by a public official. Members of the public (or
any agency) who have shown interest in the site have been sent
information automatically on a regular basis by county health
officials. State health officials have been equally cooperative.
Ci tizen participants do think, however, that there is not enough
scientific data on the disposal area and that more studies need to
be done. Several public officials disagree and believe that enough
studies have been conducted to determine a solution. State and
county health leaders believe that additional epidemiological
information is needed, and are in the process of gathering these
data.
B.
Types of Information
Mainly general information rather than technical
information has been distributed to the public. The Parents of
Jurupa have occasionally called in a chemist (who resides in the
area) to comment on various test results. In addition, CED has
enlisted the help and advice of Paul Blanc who holds a Master of
Science in Public Health. Leaders feel the public cannot understand
complex, technical information and that reports of low but
detectable levels of chemicals in the soil or water will give rise
to distorted perceptions.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 80 -
While most officials believe that no conflicting or distorted
information has been released, citizen participants strongly
disagree. Activists argue that there has been conflicting testimony
concerning the actual health risks of the site. Clearly, there has
been little coordination between those supplying this kind of
information. The biggest problem, according to the citizens, is
that there has not been enough investigation regarding many aspects
of the site.
C.
Effect of Information on the Public
1.
Issue Saliency
Everyone interviewed agreed that new information,
particularly when it was disturbing, helped increase visibility of
the issue. There was more media coverage when heavy rains fell.
Information Distortion by the Public
2.
A number of leaders believe certain active citizens
have overreacted publicly to test results and official statements.
The finding of a small trace of hexavalent chromium in the well next
to the Glen Avon Elementary School and the public outcry which
ensued was often cited as an example. Also, the showing by CED of
"The Killing Ground," an ABC documentary on toxic wastes, to
communi ty residents led to increased alarm about the Stringfellow
site. Lois Gibbs' comparison of the problem to Love canal during
her visit to the pond area and later in her talk to a public meeting
appears to be an exaggeration. In this case, however, such
"consciousness raising" has led to increased public participation
and official action.
3.
Citizen Participation,
Conflict Mitigation
Conflict
Escalation,
and
All those who were interviewed agreed that information
provided by the media during the heavy rain periods, particularly in
1978 and 1980, and the involvement of Hayden's group in the conflict
resulted in increased public awareness and participation. Citizen
activism led to greater media coverage and, in turn, placed added
pressure on public officials to act. Nearly everyone felt that the
activities of CED and CNA have escalated the conflict and have
increased leader responsiveness. This seems to have moved the
entire problem closer to a settlement. Both citizens and officials
wonder whether anything would have been done had public
participation not been so high.
4.
The Impact of National Events
There is little doubt that the Love Canal incident had
an impact on the Stringfellow controversy. Even before the arrival
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 81 -
of Lois Gibbs, the New York Times had referred to the site as "Love
Canal West." There also appears to have been greater sensitivity
and responsiveness by public officials to the demands and concerns
of the Parents of Jurupa just after Love Canal became nationally
prominent. For some members of the newly formed CNA group, Gibbs'
visit only reinforced similarities already clear in members'
minds -- between the two sites. While touring the pond area she
commented, "This looks like Love Canal allover again," and "I can
understand why they call it Love Canal West." Her visit to
California received substantial media coverage.
v.
METHODS OF INTERACTION
A.
Public Hearings
Throughout the 1970' s the RWQCB used public hearings to
consider public comments on the abandoned hazardous waste site.
Hearings in 1974-1975 centered around either re-opening the site or
closing it properly. A petition to the State Board from Parents of
Jurupa succeeded in tightening the conditions under which
Stringfellow could reopen the site. In January 1977 the RWQCB held
a public hearing to choose among the alternatives offered by the
James R. Montgomery engineering study to close the site. A clay cap
was decided upon.
Because that work was not completed before later floods altered
the site, another public hearing to choose closure alternatives was
held on July 2, 1980. By this time, substantial public opposition
to capping the site had grown. In this hearing, the initial
recommendation for capping was changed to a recommendation for
complete removal of the wastes.
B.
Public Meetings
Several less formal methods of public interaction were used
during the Stringfellow controversy. In this case public meetings
were used more to provide information to citizens than to solicit
input. Congressman George Brown sponsored a public meeting in the
Jurupa Junior High School in September 1978. A number of local,
regional, state, and federal officials made statements, and comments
were also solicited from local residents. The meeting was
well-attended, and the outcome was a formal request to the state to
test the soil and water testing below the site.
The Concerned Neighbors in Action and CED have sponsored at
least two public meetings at the Jurupa Community Center: one in
lVJarch 1980 to discuss the action taken by EPA and the Coast Guard
and to plan for future citizen involvement, and the second' in July
1980 where Lois Gibbs of Love Canal spoke.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 82 -
Other Forms of Citizen Participation
C.
Letter-writing and phone calls to responsible officials and
legislators have been used throughout the Stringfellow controversy.
A petition by Parents of Jurupa to the State Board in 1974 helped
close the site initially. Ruth Kirby's calls to the Air Quality
agency triggered sampling of air particulates in 1978 which showed
the site was in violation of dust standards. The CNA has also
launched a letter-writing campaign to state legislators and others.
In March 1980 when the 311K action was taken, the EPA on-scene
coordinator invited local citizens on a tour of the site to see what
EPA and the COast Guard had done at the pits. This gesture helped
alleviate citizen "fear of the unknown" regarding the site.
At the July 1980 public hearing, the CED organized a small
demonstration before the RWQCB hearing. Children of CNA members
carried signs advocating the removal of the waste because of the
potential for health problems.
VI. EFFECTS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
A.
Effects on the COmmunity
Most agree that the involvement of the Parents of Jurupa
and especially CNA in the conflict led to increased awareness and
concern on the part of the community residents. The two groups also
persuaded all the community organizations mentioned above to take a
clear and favorable public ~osition on the issue of complete removal
of the site.
The involvement of Torn Hayden in the issue has had an
interesting impact on community politics. At the grass roots level~
several CNA members said they seriously considered the costs and
benefits before they agreed to collaborate with CED. They feared
tbat the conservative-leaning residents of Glen Avon would be
repelled by the involvement of an outside "leftist" organization.
Yet they needed the organizational and political expertise that CED
could provide, as well as Torn Hayden's name ,if they were going to
have a significant impact on the governmental process. Looking
back, CNA thinks it was all worth it. In fact, because of recent
successes, some residents who originally were dismayed at Hayden' s
involvement are now happy he chose to become involved in the
problem. There are still people living in Glen Avon who fear that
his continued participation will eventually bring too much attention
to the site and lower their property values.
At the local and regional level, a few officials feel Hayden is
only using the people of Glen Avon to further his own political
career. In general, most leaders do not welcome Hayden's
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 83 -
involvement in this issue, although they
legitimate actor in the political process.
recognize
that he
is
a
B.
Effects on Policy
Overall, public participation in the controversy has had a
significant effect on policy-making. Because of the early
activities of the Parents of Jurupa, there has been increased
monitoring of the wells. Also, air and additional water samples
have been collected. As a result of the actions taken by this
group, the site was closed and has remained closed. Recently, CNA
and Parents of Jurupa have managed to persuade a number of leaders
to support the removal of the site. There are a few people who are
opposed to this position. As previously mentioned, the State Board
and the SWRCB have responded positively to their demands. In
addition, investigations by state and county health officials are
about to begin. Citizen participants feel that because of their
actions, something is finally being done. This, in turn, has
probably led the community to pe rcei ve these agencies as competent
and effective.
During the interviews, leaders and citizens were asked who they
thought could best handle the Stringfellow problem. A little over
half of the people questioned said that if the RWQCB had more funds
it could best deal with the site. Some mentioned the State Board
and the regional EPA office because of their expertise in such
matters. Most people agreed that funding and not a shortage of
expertise was a major obstacle to abating the site.
VII.
SUMMATION
The Stringfellow case illustrates how an organized public can
thwart the conclusions of technical experts and shape policy
decisions to their own wishes. Of the various alternatives
presented by the consulting engineers, the RWQCB staff preferred the
capping of the site. Yet to satisfy the public, the Board was
obliged to recommend the complete removal of wastes at five times
the cost. Moreover, the public g roup that had the most influence
over their decision was not the group that had been active in the
matter for nearly 25 years, but a group of relative newcomers to the
area, organized only months before. Thus, the least-cost solution
to the hazardous waste problem was pre-empted by a citizens' group
whose formation and whose political skill may well have been
unanticipated by policy-makers.
The magnitude of the reaction in the surrounding community to
the Stringfellow site's problem has increased greatly in the past
few years. That is not only because the problem itself increased in
severity; nor is it only because of media attention and the visit of
a Love Canal representative. Citizen concern is growing partly
ICF INCORPORATEC
-------
- 84 -
because the surrounding community itself is growing. While isolated
at the time of the site's establishment, the Stringfellow pits are
being increasingly encroached upon by the vanguards of urban
sprawl. And the people who move to the area generally are young
couples with growing children, people with substantial recent
investments in their home and a young family to protect. These are
the people who appear to be most amenable to political activism.
They are also people who had not been formally active prior to their
involvement with hazardous waste issues and whose political activism
is most likely to reflect impatience and dissatisfaction with
operating through normal political channels.
The Stringfellow case also illustrates the extent to which local
and state governments can be expected to rely upon the federal
government financially. Even before any federal "Superfund" program
has been established, the California state government allocated far
less for the clean-up of this site than would be required.
Evidently the state government expects the federal government to pay
the bulk of the costs.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 85 -
JACKSON TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY
INTRODUCTION
Jackson Township is probably more typical of a hazardous waste
emergency than the massive chemical spills that draw attention
elsewhere. But it is also a peculiar case because of the political
battles that developed at the site.
The basic problem at Jackson Township is groundwater
contamin~tion. The municipal landfill the township used to dispose
of non-hazardous solid and septic wastes is allegedly the source of
the contamination. Several factors we discuss here turned public
involvement in the problem into a bitter feud and transformed
relations between citizens and local government into mutual
hostility and disdain.
While other cases illustrate contention between local citizens
and state or federal levels of government, a large part of the
confrontation at Jackson Township has been between one part of the
community and the local government. Like other cases in populated
areas, the residents who have children exposed to the hazardous
chemicals have been the most active, impatient, and emotional about
the problem. Jackson To\ynship residents have also been in contact
with representatives of the Love Canal citizens' group.
Jackson Township, Ocean County, is situated in central New
Jersey in the northern portions of the "pine Barrens, n a
sparsely-populated, semi-wilderness region bounded by major
population centers. The soil is sandy, replete with bogs, and
capable of supporting little vegetation beyond scrub pine trees.
Underneath is the Cohansey aquifer, an important fresh water
supply. Highway construction in the past two decades has
transformed Jackson from an isolated rural area with a stable
population of marginal-income "pineys" into a lower-middle and
middle class bedroom community. Most of the new residents,
attracted by low housing costs and a rural setting, have corne from
northern New Jersey or New York and many still commute back each day
to jobs in their former communities. The township's population has
grown from 18,000 in 1970 to an estimated 24,000 today.
Most of Jackson' s residents receive water from the municipal
water system, which taps an aquifer lying 300 feet below
ground-level. Residents of Legler, however -- an outlying district
of some 165 houses, far less heavily developed than other sections
of the township, and more recently developed as well -- have relied
upon water from their own wells. Several of these are shared
,
ICF INCORPORATE[
-------
- 86 -
"community" wells that reach the deep aquifer and have experienced
no problems, but most are individual wells that extend between 29
and 55 feet deep and tap a separate shallow aquifer. A total of 14p
of these individual wells in a four-square-mile portion of Legler
are now contaminated. All lie wi thin 1. 5 miles of the township
landfill.
1.
CHRONOLOGY
A.
Events at the Site
The history of well contaminations attributed to municipal
landfills in Jackson Township extends back at least nine years. In
1971, contaminants were discovered in the wells of residents
bordering the municipal landfill that, until then, had been used for
the disposal of locally-generated refuse. The township argued that
the source of the contaminants was the residents' own septic tanks.
However, the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP) indicted the townshi~ brought suit, and forced the
township to suspend operations at the site.
The township government was able to locate a new site for refuse
disposal in the form of a 135-acre parcel of land in the Legler
district, purchased from Glidden Industries for $1. 00. Glidden had
used the land for mining a mineral used in paint manufacture~ what
remained on the 135 acres was mine tailings consisting of clean sand
to a depth of about 25 feet. The low purchase price was in exchange
for relieving Glidden of its obligation to reclaim the mined-out
land. Only about 20 acres were used by the township for disposal
purposes. At present, the site is a desolate expanse of sand dunes,
bordered in the distance by low pine trees, bearing none of the
gruesome reminders of noxious chemicals and illegal dumpings that
distinguish other problematic hazardous waste disposal sites.
The township's announcement that it would transfer its waste
disposal operation to the Legler site was greeted with protest by
the few residents then in the area. A petition circulated in the
township, which received 319 signatures, claimed that the unnatural
conditions of the site -- the fact that it consisted of clean sand
-- made it inappropriate for waste disposal. There were accusations
of fraud in the soil borings used by the township to establish the
site's suitability. Nevertheless, on April 24, 1972, DEP granted
Jackson Township a license to accept solid waste at the Legler
site. Shortly after the beginning of operations, the township began
to accept locally-generated liquid septic tank wastes. When the
decision was made to begin charging for waste disposal (at a rate of
$6 per thousand gallons), the site was opened to outside sources,
although the liquid wastes accepted were supposed to be limited to
septage. Legler residents claim that as much as 300,000 gallons of
waste per day were dumped at the site.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 87 -
On several occasions between April 1972 and November 1978, DEP
accused the township of accepting liquid wastes in a quantity far in
excess of what could be absorbed by the solid material at the site;
and in early 1974, DEP cited the township for "lagooning" raw or
untreated sewage. In August 1974, the Ocean County Public Health
Coordinator stated that an "environmental crisis" existed at the
site. The township was also faulted on all sides for inadequate
security measures; no fence protected the landfill against illegal
dumping at night, nor was there said to be sufficient testing of the
chemical make-up of the liquid materials being deposited in the
landfill. According to a suit brought by DEP in 1980, township
officials knew "or should have known" that dangerous chemicals were
leaking from the site into the underlying aquifer since 1975.
Township officials respond that they tested the wastes accepted and
guarded against illegal dumping to the best of their ability.
Sometime in 1976, a few Legler residents began to complain of
unpleasant odors from their well water. The township health officer
appealed to the state DEP for help in testing, but nothing more
serious than an increase in iron content was detected until tests
for the presence of organic chemicals were first conducted in the
summer of 1978. These were returned with a finding of exceptionally
high ammonia content, which DEP attributed to sewerage contamination
from the landfill. On November 8, 1978, the township sent letters
to 96 families in Legler, advising them no longer to drink water
from their wells.
The state thereafter conducted additional testing of well
water. On December 20, DEP ordered the township to cease accepting
liquid wastes at the landfill and on December 21 advised residents
to limit their use of well water to cleaning purposes alone. The
New Jersey Department of Health announced on January 3, 1979 that it
had detected the presence of known carcinogens in several wells;
including benzene and 1,1,2,2 tetrachloroethane, as well as other
chemicals that are toxic in large doses. Additional toxics found
subsequently include chloroform, trichloroethylene: 1,2
dichloroethane, toluene, chlorobenzene, cadmium, lead, and mercury.
Of these chemicals, benzene is probably the most widely feared and
certainly the most widely cited in connection with the case.
Legler residents have attributed a long list of ailments to
drinking contaminated well wate r. Kidney diseases predominate on
the list. Seven residents have experienced serious kidney maladies
since moving to Legler, resulting in one death (an infant), two
kidney removals, and two people currently on dialysis. Several pet
animals have died of kidney disease. There have been seven or eight
known miscarriages in Legler in the past several years, and an
"abnormal" amount of vaginal infections in young girls. Residents
display pictures of the serious skin rashes that have broken out
following showers in well water. State officials acknowledge that
ICF INCORPORATEI
-------
- 88 -
the chemicals discovered in Legler wells are toxic, but they deny
steadfastly that there is any evidence to connect the Legler
residents' problems to drinking contaminated well water.
The township government's response to the situation, following
the November 8 letter, was to truck drinking water to the affected
residents as a temporary measure and to build a new water system in
the Legler district as a permanent solution. Water deliveries of
two 17-gallon drums per family were made daily or at least several
times a week. Leg Ie r residents continued to bathe in well water
although the township eventually offered them shower facilities at a
school some 5 miles away. The 21 months during which water
deliveries have taken place have been marred by accusations of
vandalism, deliberate spoiling of the water by disgruntled municipal
employees, and inadequate supplies.
Legler residents would have preferred that the township
permanently resolve the situation by digging new individual wells
that reached the deeper uncontaminated aquifer. Both residents and
the township obtained cost estimates for individual wells. The
township government, however, decided to opt for the construction of
a new water system, even though it would be more expensive than
digging new wells and would take longer to complete. According to
its attorney, the township felt legally proscribed from making what
it saw as private improvements at public expense. Moreover, the
state was unable to offer financial assistance for anything other
than a new water system. Accordingly, in De~ember 1979, the
township began construction of a new water system stemming from a
single deep well and capable of servicing 200 houses. Financing was
provided by an $850,000 bond issue and a loan of $1.2 million from
the New Jersey Clean Waters Fund, made available through special
legislative action. The township is also negotiating with the
federal Farmers Home Administration for a grant to replace the loan
from the state.
Legler's new water system began operation on July 3, 1980, but
at the time of this report, only a portion of the Legler houses have
been hooked into the system. The township is requiring Legler
residents to p'!y a hook-up fee of $210 down and about $600 total
with various financing provisions available. But the residents, who
had previously received their well water for free, object both to
the fee and to a rate for water use somewhat higher than that
charged other township resiaents. A court decision recently
affirmed the legality of the hook-up fee. The township is currently
also trying to convince Legler residents with uncontaminated
community wells to hook into the water system.
The Jackson Township landfill itself ceased operations on
February 11, 1980, sixteen months after the well contamination was
disclosed. Acceptance of liquid wastes was suspended in November of
1978, but the State Public Utilities Commission ordered the township
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 89 -
to resume liquid waste disposal until a connection to the well
contamination could be established. When DEP officially charged in
December 1979 that the landfill was to blame, the acceptance of
liquid wastes at the site was halted. In January 1980, the landfill
was closed to everything except solid wastes generated wi thin the
community, and on February 11 the landfill was closed altogether.
The New Jersey DEP brought suit against the township in January 1980
to have the site permanently capped but that has not yet been done.
The state has dug numerous monitoring wells and continues water
testing. The township government has maintained all along that its
landfill is not the source of the groundwater contamination; it
points instead to illegal dumping on an adjoining property, and it
has hired a consultant engineer to corroborate its claim.
B.
Citizen Involvement
For most Legler residents, the November 8, 1978 letter from
the township was the first iD;dication that anything might be wrong
with their well water. The reaction of most residents was probably
similar to that of one woman who, when asked what she did when she
learned her water was unsafe, replied, "I got hysterical." Legler
residents phoned the township offices with questions; they showed up
in numbers at the biweekly public meetings of the Township
Committee; they organized meetings to become acquainted few
people in the sprawling rural district had known their neighbors
before -- and to discuss their problems. People recounted their
ailments at these meetings and were struck by the number of
seemingly related problems among their neighbors. When the township
government failed to answer the questions of Legler residents to
their satisfaction, or to give adequate signs of concern and
compassion for their problems, tempers rapidly began to flare.
Township officials, on their part, claim that they could provide no
firm answers without further testing, and that the state DEP was
delaying reports of test results. They began to perceive the Legler
residents to be unreasonable.
The history of citizen involvement at Jackson Township from this
point is largely a chronicle of the progressive deterioration of
relations between Legler residents and the township government.
Both sides began increasingly to regard one another with suspicion;
the public township meetings became confrontations dominated by
strong and conflicting personalities. Legler residents began to
think that the township officials were lying to them; they accused
the officials of withholding information and even of destroying
evidence.
Legler residents formed an ad hoc organization, the Legler
Concerned Citizens Committee, shortly after their water problems
were disclosed. This group has continued to represent the interests
of the affected residents with some degree of unity. Its de facto
ICF INCORPORATE
-------
- 90 -
leader and spokesman has been Mr. James McCarthy. The issues that
have dominated the organization's efforts have shifted over time in
accordance with actions taken -- or not taken -- by government
officials as described above.
Media awareness of the situation in Jackson Township grew
gradually- One event, however, changed both the quantity and
character of media attention overnight. On June 6, 1980, Mr.
McCarthy and another Legler resident testified in Washington at
hearings before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee' s
Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, chaired by Senator
Edward Kennedy (citizens from Woburn, Massachusetts also
testified) . Pictures of McCarthy in tears before Kennedy were
published nationwide the following day, and as the "human interest"
potential of Jackson Township's problems became apparent, news
people from all quarters descended upon the township. This
groundwater contamination problem has since been regularly cited as
a prime example of the nation's hazardous waste problems.
The legal developments in the case have centered around a $51.5
million damage suit brought by over 300 Legler residents against the
township in August 1979. The suit charges the township government
with mi-smanagement and stipulates that the money awarded be placed
in a trust for cleaning up the site and covering future medical
expenses of the children of Legler residents, rather than being
distributed among the plaintiffs. The township subsequently
countersued, denying negligence and blaming illegal dumping
instead. The New Jersey DEP filed suit against the township in
February 1980 in order to force the closing of the landfill and the
construction of a permanent cap.
This report- describes citizen involvement in Jackson Township
and analyzes how that involvement arose and why it took the form
that it did. In any such analysis, the important factors do not
necessarily coincide with the technical facts of the matter.
Rather, what is important is how the various participants perceived
each other and the events that surrounded them. The political
situation that has evolved in Jackson has been a reaction to a
perceived sequence of groundwater problems, health problems,
administration and communications problems, and seeming bad faith on
all sides.
II. VISIBILITY OF THE CASE
Hazardous waste emergencies are fairly common in the state of
New Jersey. Virtual replicas of Jackson Township's groundwater
contamination problems are presently developing or have recently
occurred in several nearby pine Barrens communities. Few, however,
have generated as much political heat.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 91 -
The saliency of this case may be gauged by several indices.
Press coverage of any development is now regularly front-page news
in the Asbury Park, Trenton, and even Newark newspapers. The New
York Times has run a-number of stories, and several items have been
carried by national wire services. Philadelphia television was
present from the beginning. New York television discovered the case
six months later, and since Mr. McCarthy's testimony in Washington,
Jackson Township has been featured on nationally broadcast stories
about hazardous wastes.
The political repercussions of the situation in the locality
have been strong. Republicans were able to win control of the
township government from the Democrats last year. One of the
Republicans' main campaign planks was the promise to be more
responsive to Legler's problems; Legler residents accordingly
organized a voters' drive on behalf of the Republicans and now take
credit for their victory. Outside. of the community, the Jackson
Township case has had no political effect. However, it is widely
known and discussed within regional and federal EPA offices, in
Trenton, and among Congressional staffs in Washington.
The widespread attention given Jackson Township's problems is
clearly attributable to the clamor raised by the extremely strident
and persistent leaders of the Legler residents. Mr. McCarthy, in
particular, is a hard-working organizer and a highly effective
presence before cameras. The Washington hearings, as mentioned
before, had a marked effect upon the recognition given the
situation. Certainly here as elsewhere, when newspeople are looking
for an example to illustrate a story, they tend to focus on cases
that they know will be effective and that they can research easily
because of past coverage. In this way, a few select cases may
attract considerable attention and grow to prominence.
III.
ACTORS
A. Government
Jackson Township is governed by a five-member elected
committee, with one member serving as mayor. All are part-time
politicians earning their livings through other jobs. None
presently are from Legler. The township also employs a full-time
administrator, attorney, and support staff for administration and
municipal services.
The attitude of township officials towards the Legler residents
and their problems was generally one of sympathy, even to the point
of saying that" I would do the same thing if I were in their
place." Nonetheless, they felt that all the hostility between the
township and the Legler residents was caused by a small minority of
the affected residents who were intent upon raising a commotion and
ICF INCORPORATE
-------
- 92 -
unwilling to be "reasonable." Township officials acknowledged that
there had been delays in responding both to the Legler residents'
questions and to their water problems. But the officials say that
they could not answer questions until tests had been done, and that
the results of the tests -- performed by DEP --. were invariably
delayed. They plead that the new water system was delayed by
difficulties in arranging financing, the impossibility of continuing
construction during the winter, and a complicated permitting process
(construction in the township is affected by a moratorium on
development in the Pine Barrens). On the whole, say township
officials, they were equally as frustrated as the Legler residents
by these delays and irritated that the residents refused to be
understanding. "What else could we do," they ask, ~given our
limited resources?" They also report frustration at being unable to
quell opposition from the residents.
Relations between the township government and DEP were poor from
the start. DEP's apparent procrastination in returning test results
subjected township officials to verbal abuse from Legler residents
who blamed the township for the delay. Township officials
responded, as the mayor said, with the feeling that "the state let
us down." DEP subsequently filed suit against the township for the
well contamination, generating bitterness among township officials
and the belief that DEP was acting only to save face and to present
the appearance of being responsive to citizens. Those township
officials who deal most closely with the state complained that they
were continually given the "run-around" and had great difficulty
getting the right agency to do the right thing at the right time.
On its part, the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection has substantially changed both its programs (because of
new legislation) and its structure in the last two years. According
to both DEP staff and outside observers, the result has been a rapid
rise in sensitivity to hazardous waste problems and in the expertise
and resources to deal with them. Oontrol over hazardous waste
problems was shifted from the Division of Solid Wastes, whose
primary focus is on refuse disposal, to the Division of Water
Resources, whose focus is increasingly on groundwater protection.
This division is now run by geologists. A $3 million spill fund is
newly available in New Jersey. but it was put only to minimal use in
Jackson.
Legler residents complain that "the state," by which they mean
the Governor and DEP administration, was of no help to them
whatsoever. Nonetheless, when pressed, they do cite several state
officials who demonstrated great concern for their problems, and who
went to great lengths to help. Prominent among these are a
geologist in DEP's Division of Water Resources, who now devotes
about one-third of his working time to the case, and a lawyer
formerly in the public advocate's office.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 93 -
Reg ion II EPA has had little to do with the Jackson Township
case. Indeed, EPA headquarters in Washington has had more contact
wi th participants through pre-existing personal relations. Region
II officials explain that the state DEP was already thoroughly
involved in the case and appeared to be acting responsibly - And
they say that they had no jurisdiction because only private wells,
not public water supplies, were in question. This explanation has
not satisfied Legler residents; DEP officials believe Region II
should still have been more responsive to requests for laboratory
aid in analyzing water samples. An additional reason why Region II
appears to have avoided this case is that they want to prevent
citizens from appealing to duplicate agencies and exhausting limited
government resources, so they stay entirely away from certain
cases. Accordingly, Region II EPA and DEP now delegate
responsibility for individual hazardous waste cases in New Jersey to
one agency or the other.
B.
Legler citizens
Virtually all public participation in this case has been
channeled through the Legler Concerned Citizens' Committee, an ad
hoc group organized shortly after the November 8, 1978 notice of
well contamination was mailed. Existing civic and community groups
in Jackson Township have done nothing in this matter and have said
little one way or the other. The Legler residents and their lawyer
appealed to New Jersey environmentalist groups (e.g. the Sierra
Club), but found them either unwilling to help or naive in their
recommendations. Several academic people in nearby universities
(Princeton and Rutgers) were said to be both interested and very
helpful. However, the outside groups most frequently cited as
valuable were similar ad hoc citizens' groups from other localities
with hazardous waste troubles. Legler residents maintained
telephone contact with some of these groups and furnished reciprocal
aid.
The Legler residents' group consists of 107 of the affected
families; about 40 affected families do not participate. The degree
of participation in the group varies, but there is a core group of
about 30 people. The primary organizer and de facto leader is the
aforementioned Jim McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy i-;- unemployed, allowing
him to work full-time on this matter. He also has a strong
emotional impetus: he lost his infant daughter to kidney disease
several years ago, and he late r had to have one of his kidneys
removed. Under the direction of Mr. McCarthy and several others,
the group is well-organized and efficient. And there seems little
question that although Mr. McCarthy takes the spotlight, he is
representative of the concerns of the group' s members in general.
Whether his personal manner and tactics -- which are consistently
confrontational and even abusive are representative is a
different matter. Some residents interviewed felt that while Mr.
McCarthy's tactics have been effective, they would have preferred
ICF INCORPORATI
-------
- 94 -
him to have toned down after a point. Township officials claim that
his "irrational" attitude is unrepresentative of anything more than
10% of the Legler residents. On the whole, the group's cohesiveness
seems largely the product of Mr. McCarthy I s diligence and
organizational skill. Interviewed group members cite the need for
such a leader in this sort of situation.
None of the Legler residents had previous experience with any
comparable activity, nor had any been politically active in a
conventional way before this incident. Some had participated in
civic or fraternal organizations, but none could be found who had
belonged to environmental groups or had even thought about
environmental matters before (beyond desiring to escape the noise
and pollution of the city for rural Jackson). Their experience has
now made them think highly of activists like those at Love Canal.
Some Legler residents had distrusted the township government
prior to this incident because of opposition to the siting of the
landfill and dealings with building inspectors. They also thought
that township officials were, inclined from the start to be
unconcerned about Legler's problems. If this is true, it is not
because of differences in socio-economic status. People in Legler
generally have lower incomes than people elsewhere in the township,
but the differential, except for the "pineys" in Legler, is not
great enough to represent a class distinction; and the origins of
most residents in the township -- emigres from northern New Jersey
or New York -- are the same. Rather, geography plays a more
important role: Legler lies "off in the woods" away from the major
development in the township.
The residents involved in the Concerned Citizens' Committee have
all been affect_ed by well contamination. Some people elsewhere in
the township expressed support for the Legler residents, but on the
whole, other Jackson citizens have maintained their distance. There
is an undercurrent of resentment at the Legler people because of the
increase in local taxes necessitated by their new water system as
well as their "rabble-rousing." Indeed, there were some affected
Legler residents dissuaded from involvement by the tactics of the
Citizens' Committee.
The concerns of Legler residents are not surprising. The
intensity of their reaction to the contamination of their wells was
undoubtedly the product of the feared effect on their health. Those
recently afflicted with serious kidney maladies reacted most
strongly. While residents recognize that their problems are
probably not as acute as those of the people at Love Canal, they
worry especially about the possibility of illness among their
children. At the time of this report, the main demand of Legler
residents upon the state was tor a health survey. Residents had
obtained copies of the survey used at Love Canal, circulated them,
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 95 -
and given the results to the state health department. The state
concluded that no link could be established between the drinking of
contaminated well water and the more serious of the local ailments
(the kidney problems, in particular); yet residents reject this
survey as inadequate. What residents say they want from an adequate
survey is some indication of the kinds of health problems that may,
with time, threaten them and their children. That, they say, would
warn their doctors about possible health developments to be guarded
against in the future.
The concern that dominates the community, however, is money.
The current point of dispute between Legler residents and the
township is over the payment of the fee to hook up to the new water
system. There is anger at having to pay the township for correcting
a problem that is perceived to be of the township's own making. The
belief that township officials have been concerned has increased
their anger over this matter. The need to pay for water that used
to be free and the expected loss in property values also causes
displeasure. In fact, according to Mr. McCarthy, Legler residents
would never have brought suit had the township simply dug them new
wells or installed a new water system at no cost. Cynical observers
say that Legler residents are concerned solely about money and use
the health issue as a rationalization. Even some Legler residents
say they are "counting on" the money from the lawsuit, although no
award from the lawsuit would be distributed to individuals. Some
residents are now resisting the township's order to cap their
contaminated wells: they want to be able to use the free water for
watering their lawns.
Daily concerns have been the lack of running water for drinking
and bathing purposes, the problems with the delivery of water in
cans, and the _delays in receiving a permanent new water supply.
Some residents convey the strong impression that once they have
running water in their homes again, much of the flame of political
activism will die out; the problem will then be over.
IV. INTERACTION AND INFORMATION
A.
Citizens' Tactics
The leaders of the Legler Concerned Citizens' Committee
have persistently explored every conceivable source of action or
assistance. Their initial move was to circulate a newsletter among
residents and to appear en masse at township committee meetings.
Subsequently, they hired a lawyer and sued the township. They
rapidly organized a successful appeal to lower their county tax
assessments. They solicited the help of every possible state and
federal elected representative. Their persistence may have been
counterproductive at times: the initial willingness of state
representatives to help evidently declined as requests for aid were
ICF INCORPOR"
-------
- 96 -
repeated. The tactic cited by Legler residents as most effective
was the threat to call in the press. While township officials are
clearly not happy with the adverse publicity, they deny that media
attention has in any way altered their actions.
B.
Information Sources
The cause of the initial friction between Legler residents
and the township was residents' claims that their questions went
unanswered. On the other hand, township officials say that they
told the residents everything they' knew, but that some questions
simply did not have answers (e. g. questions about standards for
permissible chemical content in water). They also claim the
residents simply did not like the answers they got, saying "They
just were not the answers they wanted to hear, namely, that
everything would be done for them immediately and at no cost." The
former township health officer -- whom several Legler residents
cited as trustworthy -- gives the sa~e explanation for the friction
between residents and township government. Residents claim that, on
the contrary, they asked questions that township officials should
have been prepared to answer -- When will the landfill be closed?
When will we get water? What are our legal rights? -- but that the
only answers they received were that their questions would be looked
into and that no money was available.
The result, in any event, was that residents lost confidence in
township officials except for the former health officer, who
remained an important source of information. The primary
information sources for residents have been their lawyer and Mr.
Wayne Saunders, the DEP geologist. Mr. McCarthy says that other
government officials have leaked information to him.
Perhaps the most appreciated information source, however, were
citizens from other communities with hazardous waste problems.
Legler residents report that they obtained from such people
information they could find from no other source: advice on how to
prod unresponsive government agencies to action as well as the
comfort that comes from talking over traumatic experiences with
others who have been in the same situation.
The media played no role in providing information of value to
local participants. Published information was largely derived from
what Legler residents, their lawyer, or township officials wished to
disclose. There was no revealing investigative journalism.
Residents found newspaper reportage repetitious and sometimes
inaccurate. Both township officials and residents found coverage to
be generally fair, except for an occasional attempt to
sensationalize the case. Television news stories by WABC-TV of a
health catastrophe had the unwanted consequence of scaring
residents. None of the Legler residents were cognizant that
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 97 -
reportage that attempted to side with the residents sometimes had
the opposite effect: some outside observers received the
impression of an irrational and obstreperous group with excessive
demands. Reports that their health problems could not be tied to
the contaminated well water corroborated this impression.
The Jackson Township case is distinguished by an absence of
conflicts in information from different sources. There was no
conflicting information in part because people like Mr. Saunders and
the former township health officer knew the importance of presenting
information sensi ti vely and intelligently. They stressed the need
to be as open, informative, and consistent as possible, and they
were careful to avoid giving partial information or bits of a story
which could easily be distorted when taken out of context.
Most material of a technical nature could be comprehended by
leaders of the Legler residents with some supplementary
explanation. Expectations from medical and epidemiological
information were realistic. Residents say that they do not ever
expect a health survey to establish a causal link between their
contaminated well water and any particular individual's disease, but
they do expect to learn what problems they stand a greater
likelihood of developing because of the chemicals they had ingested
over time. Some residents were afraid of medical information and
admit that, in consequence, they did not answer the questions on the
health survey truthfully. They simply did not want to know that
they might have serious health problems.
C.
Conflict Mitigation
The stimulus to conflict in this case was a lack of
satisfactory inJormation. The nature of the conflict at Jackson
Township shows how important it is to provide as much prompt
information as possible and to present it in a sensitive way.
However, it is doubtful if information alone -- even in adequate
supply and skillfully presented -- could have prevented conflict in
this case. Township officials firmly believe that Legler residents
would have been unhappy with anything they were told other than that
their problems would be rapidly remedied at no cost. And certainly,
once antagonism had grown, no amount of information alone woul~ have
been able to restore relations. The only way to quell the agitation
of the Legler people would be to eliminate their main concern by
furnishing a new water supply. Yet even that would not wholly
dispel anxieties over health.
An important distinction must be drawn here between what is
technically preferable, what is politically preferable, and what is
economically feasible. The politically preferable solution to the
problem would have been to dig each family a new well at no cost the
family; that is what Legler residents asked for, what the Republican
ICF INCORPORAl
-------
- 98 -
candidates wanted to give them, and what would therefore have most
effectively ended the conflict. The technically preferable solution
was. to build a new water system with one deep well as its source.
Only one well would have had to be monitored. Furthermore, the risk
of contaminating the deep aquifer with wells that puncture the
shallow contaminated aquifer first is less with one well than with
160 individual wells. The only economically feasible solution,
however, was to build the new water system. Even though one deep
well was more expensive than individual wells, the township could
not obtain financing for any other course of action. Thus, the
township government was compelled to choose a response that, while
technically preferable and economically feasible, was not the best
means of mitigating conflict.
Region II EPA officials, in commenting on the case, explained
the value of having an on-scene coordinator to channel all
communication between citizens and government -- a mechanism absent
in this case. However, the new Jackson Township government
understands the need to have one person to whom all questions are
directed and who must provide answers. All water problems are now
handled by one person recently hired by the township to supplement
the administrative staff. This coordinator relieves the township
attorney of what had previouly been an additional duty.
Legler citizens suggest further means of allaying the fears of a
traumatized public. When asked what they would recommend to protect
others from their problems, most suggested bringing citizens from
various communities with hazardous waste problems into contact with
one another, perhaps by establishing some sort of formal network.
The experience of Jackson Township shows the positive utility of
these contacts for calming a distraught public. Other cases,
however, indicate that such contacts can have an inflammatory effect
by inviting unwarranted comparisons to the most serious hazardous
waste emergencies.
v.
EFFECTS ON PARTICIPANTS
Legler residents came away from their involvement in these
events with a deep bitterness towards government on all levels and a
thorough disillusionment with the intentions of government
officials. Many evidently expected the government to step in with
an unlimited purse and resolve their problems. Now anything said by
anyone in government is distrusted and their motives held suspect.
Legler residents recognize that certain government workers were
concerned and helpful. But they regard such people as acting on
their own in defiance of "the government." They do not see them as
an integral part of government.
Many Legler residents have claimed
complaints of stress, exci tabili ty, tension,
-- such as failing marriages -- were heard.
psychological injury;
and their consequences
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 99 -
The implications of this case for maintaining long-term citizen
involvement in the process of remedying hazardous waste problems are
somewhat negative. Bitterness towards government is not conducive
to long-term involvement, nor is the attitude of some Legler
residents that "once we get our new water system, our problems are
over." Resolution of the tangible personal problem, it ~eems, can
lead to an end to concern for other people's problems. On the other
hand, Legler residents who became politically active for the first
time in their lives said they would not hesitate to do the same
thing again. They did not say this in a spirit of cooperation with
government, however.
For the Jackson Township government, the involvement of Legler
citizens had little effect upon which course of action was chosen.
The decision to construct a new water system, for example, was
compelled by financial constraints. Township officials admit,
however, that citizens' involvement speeded such decisions. The
effect of the Legler citizens' agitation on DEP may have been
greater; it certainly focused the attention of certain DEP officials
on this particular site in a state with so many similar problems.
This incident has, as a whole, made government officials more
sensitive to the inflammatory nature of such situations and to the
care that they must take to contain them. The. Republican
administration (now in office for one year) gives indications of
greater political adeptness than its predecessor. It was initially
able to exploit the situation to its advantage, winning election on
a platform of willingness to listen to Legler's problems. Once in
off ice, it found itself unable to control events, in spite of its
attempts to keep Legler residents better informed by means of a
staff coordinator and increased mailings. The new government was
clearly in we~l over its head, and was further hampered by
personality clashes, for which it bears half the responsibility.
More important, though, is the new administration's attempts to ward
off future developments of this sort. Thus, the township is trying
to persuade Legler residents with uncontaminated community wells to
hook into the new water system, although these residents naturally
are opposed to doing so. The township government's approach has
been to identify the apparent leader among the concerned residents,
become acquainted with him, and, under the coordination of one
person within the township administration, respond promptly and
consistently to all of his questions. This approach reveals a
degree of foresight, caution, and calculation that is undoubtedly
the fruit of experience with political developments no one wants to
relive.
VI. SUMMATION
The
product
respond
turn of events in Jackson Township was, in large part, the
of the inexperience of a local government unprepared to
to the questions Legler residents brought to it very early
ICF INCORPOR'"
-------
- 100 -
on. The public, already disturbed, reacted angrily when it could
not get the information it sought; rightly or wrongly, it began to
perceive its government as deceitful and fraudulent. In essence,
the township government's image began to suffer: it could no longer
control the way its citizens perceived it. And once residents
perceived their officials as negligent and callous, there was no
recouping. The current township government seems to have learned to
some extent from its predecessor's experience, but its efforts
continue to be hampered by personality clashes.
There is perhaps no way
waste problem of this sort.
of where the fault lies,
demonstrating sensitivity,
foresight.
to be fully prepared for a hazardous
But local governments can, regardless
control the political environment by
consideration, and some measure of
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 101 -
WOBURN, MASSACHUSETTS
INTRODUCTION
In 1979, EPA tests revealed to the public for the first time
that 800 acres of land and wetland in North Woburn at the crossroads
of two major highways, north-south Interstate 93 and the Boston
beltway, Rt. 128, were scattered with the wastes of 130 years of
chemical, leather, and glue manufacturing in the area. The Woburn
site is the oldest of this series of cases in the sense that toxic
wastes have been dumped there unsafely since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, yet it is one of the most recent sites to
come under public scrutiny as a hazardous waste problem.
Woburn also stands out for the complexity of the issues
involved. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers officials found hazardous
chemicals in 1979 at a site being developed as an industrial park,
Industriplex-128, in North Woburn. On that site, the investigators
found a series of open arsenic pits, chromium lagoons, other heavy
metals, and buried or piled, decaying animal hides, hair, and
carcasses soaked with a chromium solution and emitting a strong odor
of hydrogen sulfide. Area residents are concerned about the
chemicals, but they are more worried by recent statistical analyses
of cancer deaths, showing Woburn to have the highest cancer rate in
Massachusetts for cities over 20,000 people. They wonder whether
the cancers were caused by exposure to the chemicals in North
Woburn, or by other chemicals, such as the trichloroethylene and
chloroform, two suspected carcinogens, discovered in two drinking
water wells in .early 1979 before they were closed. The source of
those contaminants has not yet been found, nor has any link between
the contaminated drinking water and the high levels of cancer and
childhood leukemia been established.
Citizens who are potentially affected by Woburn's hazardous
chemical problem -- parents of leukemia victims, residents downwind
from the decaying animal parts, businesses having trouble recruiting
employees to work in North Woburn ~- have been the most persistent
voices calling for a solution to the hazardous waste problem. Other
more general environmental activists in the region have also become
involved, but in fewer numbers and with less intensity than actual
residents of the area. Government offices at all levels, including
the Woburn city engineer, the Massachusetts Secretary for
Environmental Affairs, EPA headquarters personnel, and the National
Center for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiologists have become
involved. After some initial problems, the exchange of information
and the coordination of both citizen and government participation
have been extraordinarily good. But the lack of an adequate program
ICF INCORPORATE[
-------
- 102 -
to solve the problem and perceived government inaction continue to
frustrate residents. At the time of this report, the community is
still far from a complete understanding of the whole problem -- the
location and type of wastes, the degree and means of human exposure
to the chemicals, and the likely health effects of that level of
exposure -- much less a solution to a very complex situation.
I.
CHRONOLOGY
A.
Early Industrial Dumping, 1853-1969
The northwest quadrant of the crossroads of 1-93 and Rt.
128 has long been the site of hazardous waste-producing industries.
Merrimac Chemical Company, the largest chemical concern in New
England at the turn of the century, manufactured acids and other
chemicals for northeastern industries from 1853 to 1929 at its
Woburn plants at the site. For seventeen years prior to World War
I, Merrimac manufactured arsenic and lead-arsenic compounds for use
as pesticides. During WWI, it made explosives for the French
government.
Woburn had dozens of leather tanning industries during those
times. The chemical company which provided chromium and acids to
burn the skin and hair off hides for tanning may have allowed the
tanneries to deposit the animal wastes on its North Woburn
properties. Pockets of hide wastes have been discovered throughout
Woburn. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) has
records of hydrogen sulfide testing in response to odor complaints
in Woburn as early as 1863.
In 1929, Monsanto Company took over chemical manufacturing at
the site, an~ in turn sold the property and buildings to
Consolidated Chemical Industries. This concern manufactured hide
and bone glue at the site, further adding to the buried animal
material. Consolidated Chemical worked the site until 1969, when
the present owner, William D' Annolfo, as trustee of Mark Phillip
Realty Trust, bought the site. His plans were to redevelop the old
industrial site from the Woburn-Wilmington boundary south along the
Boston and Maine Railroad tracks on the west and 1-93 on the east to
the Route 128 beltway as an industrial park called Industriplex-128.
B.
Industriplex-128 Development, 1970-1979
Most of the hazardous waste problems are located in the
northern third of the Industriplex property. The developer and the
Woburn City Engineer who recommended the permit to develop the
property, and the State Department of Natural Resources (as it was
called then) knew of the presence of the chromium lagoons and the
buried hides. A permit, #P-988, was granted by the DNR to proceed
with the development, with the condition that the abandoned chemical
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 103 -
lagoons would be covered and sealed within one year of the permit
date of December 23, 1970, that suitable material would be used to
fill the wetlands, and that appropriate stormwater channelization
and holding ponds would be provided.
The work began in late 1972 from the southern end of the
property. A consulting engineer, Melvin W. First, tested
construction worker exposure to chromium, arsenic, hydrogen sulfide,
and particulates and found the levels to be about half the threshold
level for worker safety, on average, but explained that the testing
was done during the wet season when airborne dust was low. He
recommended that operations cease during the dry summer months.
Excavation work progressed on the property, with permit
extensions granted yearly without inquiry by the state. The summers
of 1973 and '74 were noted by residents in Reading, a town northeast
and downwind from the development, as being the smelliest in years.
D I Annolfo' s workers were uncovering pockets of buried animal hides
and depositing them in uncovered piles at the northern end of the
property. Reading complained to the state air quality officials of
nausea, headaches, loss of apetite, paint peeling off houses, and
other problems from the "rotten-egg smell" from Woburn. The state
issued notices of air pollution violations to Mark Phillip Trust,
which were ignored.
Building slowed with the recession of 1975, but 1976 and 1977
again brought hydrogen sulfide into Reading at the slightest
breeze. Beginning in the summer of 1977, the state government,
reorganized as the Department of Environmental Quality Engineering
(DEQE), began to deal more forcefully with the Industriplex
nuisance. The DEQE issued a series of notices of violation of air
pollution regu.lations, agreements between the state and the
developer on methods to reduce odor, and finally a threat of a stat~
legal action. The "Woburn odor," as it was now known in Reading and
Wilmington, continued, but was more noticeable at night and on
weekends.
In a January 1978 lawsuit, the Town of Reading, through the
effort of an organization of residents called CAP, Citizens Against
Pollution, obtained a preliminary injunction from work on two lots
on the D I Annolfo property where the hides were concentrated the
thickest. D'Annolfo, however, sold those lots to another developer
and, on April 2, 1979, when Reading citizens complained again of
odors f rom the site, the new develope r was found bulldoz ing more
hides and claiming no knowledge of the injunction.
C.
Public
Present
Discovery
of
the
Hazardous
Waste
Site,
1979
to
While Reading, a middle to upper-middle class bedroom
community, was feeling a significant impact from the wastes in North
ICF INCORPORATEI
-------
- 104 -
Woburn, the City of Woburn was unaware of any problem. Woburn was
near bankruptcy in 1972 when a new mayor took office, and his pledge.
was to increase the tax base for the old, industrial, blue-collar
town. The "clean industry" that Industriplex was attracting was an
asset to Woburn, so potentially noticeable problems with the site
may have been overlooked during the seventies. Instead, residents
and officials focused on the greater good of community solvency and
jobs.
In May 1979, the first of four discoveries, which were to become
associated that year as "the Woburn problem," came to light. Two
bad-tasting wells in East Woburn, the "G" and "H" Wells which had
been used for drinking water in the neighborhood for IS years, were
tested for organic contaminants for the first time.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) and chloroform, both suspected carcinogens,
were found and the wells were closed on May 22. Investigations to
find the source of those chemicals led to the discovery of illegally
dumped drums at a property at the southwest corner of the
Industriplex development, but those drums did not contain TCE or
chloroform. The source of contamination has not been found to date.
In mid-June, an EPA wetlands engineer riding a bus on 1-93 to
work noticed some workers filling in wetlands of the Aberjona River
on the Industriplex site. He knew that no 404 permit was registered
for the fill of that waterway and notified the Army Corps of
Engineers facility in nearby Waltham. The Corps investigator was
refused admittance to the Industriplex property, but issued a cease
and desist order until a 404 permit was obtained. The developer
continued operations on the uncompleted northern end of the
Industriplex site, which activity was discovered in an Army
overflight of the area. The Corps filed a non-compliance action
against the dev~loper in federal court which finally brought work at
the site to a halt.
Throughout the month of July 1979, the site was investigated and
tested by a team of Army Corps, EPA, and DEQE engineers, who found
the site apparently mismanaged. They discovered that the chromium
lagoons and arsenic pits had never been covered, sealed, or even
fenced, and decaying hides were piled up under Boston Edison
lIS, ODD-volt lines to within 18 feet of the wires. The Industriplex
developer was using the decaying, chemical-laced animal material as
part of the fill for a pond on the proper.ty. This evidence
triggered the court case brought in August 1979 against the Mark
Phillip Trust.
The federal agencies coordinated activities with the state DEQE
during the July testing. Although the State DEQE personnel met with
people who lived near the site and could relate its history, neither
the press nor the City of Woburn was notified of the hazardous
chemical finding's. Finally, in the early weeks of September 1979,
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 105 -
the story broke. The City Council, Board of Health, and other
Woburn officials immediately complained of lack of communication and
asked state and federal representatives to the next Council meeting
for a briefing. Later, on November I" the Woburn Board of Health
held a public meeting at City Hall where Woburn and DEQE
representatives answered the five residents of Woburn and Reading
who asked questions for the benefit of an audience of about 50.
Earlier in the fall of 1979, another meeting took place at
Trini ty Episcopal Church in Woburn. Reverend Bruce Young, who had
been investigating since 1972 what he thought was an unusual rate of
leukemia among the children of his parishioners, called an open
meeting on October 4 for East Woburn cancer victims and their
relatives. The timing of the meeting was coincidental with the
surge of interest in hazardous waste in Woburn. Rev. Young was more
inclined to link the cancers to water from the now-closed well, if
anything. His objective in the meeting was to get a better
understanding of the leukemia and related cancer problem he felt
existed in Woburn.
Two months later, a routine five-year statistical study of the
incidence of cancer deaths in Massachusetts towns revealed that
Woburn had the highest cancer death rate for a city over 20,000 in
population in the state. Cancer of the liver and kidneys was very
high and increasing in Woburn. Leukemia incidence (not deaths) were
subsequently found to be over two times the normal rate,
particularly for the East Woburn community. This finding had much
more of an impact on traditionally apathetic Woburn than the
hazardous waste discovery. The average Woburn resident blamed the
cancer problem on the water, and many now use bottled water for
drinking, though the only wells known to be contaminated were closed
earlier in 1979.
Finally on December 30, the Woburn Fire Department evacuated
several Industriplex buildings on the completed southern half of the
site due to high levels of explosive methane gas. The gas is
thought to seep into the buildings from the decaying animal hides
buried beneath some of the Industriplex structures. Several of the
businesses on the site now monitor the indoor air for the odorless,
colorless methane gas.
Public Involvement in the Woburn Site, 1980
D.
The 1979 discoveries in Woburn shocked most of the city
into an awareness of the extent of the hazardous waste problem. The
only ad hoc community organization previously involved in the
problems of the site was the Reading CAP. January 1980 marked the
formation of a Woburn group centered around Rev. Bruce Young: "For
A Cleaner Environment" (FACE), which is mostly concerned with the
public health problems that may be associated with the wastes, but
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 106 -
has been benefitted and broadened by the involvement of a Woburn
resident who also works for the Hazardous Materials Branch of EPA's
Region I. Her insights into the workin~s of government have been a
great help to Woburn's citizen activists.
The Region I EPA office intensified .its interest in the Woburn
site in January 1980. The Region I Administrator wrote a memo to
EPA Administrator Costle requesting money for testing at Woburn.
The Region also appointed a full-time coordinator for the site, who
channeled citizen concerns to the correct government branch and
coordinated intergovernmental actions.
At the same time the Army Corps of Engineers brought suit
against Mark Phillip Trust in federal court, the DEQE and City of
Woburn sued the developer in the state courts for proper clean-up of
the waste site before any construction could resume. In early
February 1980, a consent decree was worked out between the
Massachusetts Attorney. General, the DEQE, the City of Woburn, and
the Mark Phillip Trust, and it was signed. The decree was not
finalized, however, because the negotiations failed to include all
the local interests. Reading was not consulted. The court date was
postponed until August 1980, when Reading was signed as a
co-plaintiff with Woburn and the DEQE.
A series of public meetings were held in April 1980 to exchange
information on Woburn site findings and concerns. The Mystic River
Watershed Association (MRWA), a regional environmental interest
group concerned with the Mystic River groundwater and surface water
quali ty, and several othe r environmental groups sponsored a public
meeting at the Trinity Church on April 1. Representatives from
DEQE, EPA, the Army Oorps of Engineers, and the MDPH were present to
answer area re?idents' concerns about the hazardous waste problem
and its effects on the nearby communities. Over 300 people attended
the meeting which ended with a call for an epidemiological study of
Woburn residents.
In the meantime, the agencies themselves were preparing a public
meeting to present a management plan drawn up for site clean-up by
Fred C. Hart Associates and to announce EPA funding of $130,000 for
Woburn testing. EPA and DEQE first briefed Woburn officials and
area legislators on April 8, 1980. Then they announced a public
meeting on April 16 at the Woburn Junior High School auditorium.
Due to the previous recent meeting, fewer citizens attended the
EPA/DEQE meeting, though it received coverage in all the local and
regional newspapers and television, including the national
networks. It was aired by ABC and CBS on May 5, 1980, with the
promulgation of final RCRA regulations.
Two unofficial studies on the Woburn site were completed in May
1980. The Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 107 -
policy I S Urban Advocacy Project published a report entitled
"Hazardous Wastes in Woburn." It was initially part of an ongoing
study of the "Woburn odor," but expanded to include the entire
hazardous waste problem when the extent was revealed. A second
study was released internally by the North Suburban Chamber of
Commerce (NSCC) a thirteen-community business leaders' group. The
NSCC has coordinated very little with other interest groups involved
in the hazardous waste problem in Woburn, but it has produced its
own report and is lobbying through its members for the passage of
Supe rfund.
Also in May 1980, the federal consent decree between the Army
Corps of Engineers and the developer was signed by both parties.
D'Annolfo, however, will not begin the work required in the federal
decree until the state order is also settled.
The Massachusetts Secretary for Environmental Affairs announced
in May that the state legal action in Woburn constituted a "major
and significant" action, which requires an environmental impact
assessment. The Massachusetts Environmental Protection Act also
provides for a Citizens I Advisory Committee (CAC). The members of
the CAC were appointed by town, through a formula providing for a
specific number of members from each area town. Representa- tives
from EPA, DEQE, and the Corps of Engineers attend but do not vote.
The CAC has met almost weekly on Wednesday nights since its
formation, although due to the group's limited agenda, the interest
is beginning to fade. The meetings do, however, provide a forum for
the free exchange of information between citizen activists and
responsible government officials.
On June 6, 1980, Senator Edward Kennedy invited three Woburn and
Reading resideDts to testify before his Senate Subcommittee on
Health and Scientific Research in a hearing on the health effects ot
abandoned hazardous waste sites. Residents from Love Canal and
Jackson Township, New Jersey, as well as researchers from CDC also
spoke.
The epidemiological study requested at the April 1 public
meeting was begun in June, and the data collection continued through
August 1980. This modified case study for possible cancer causes is
being conducted with 47 cases and 30 control individuals from
Woburn. The results are due in October 1980.
The most recent site samples were taken by the EPA site
coordinator in late July 1980. These 15 groundwater and surface
samples were tested by EPA laboratories for 129 chemical pollutants
in August.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 108 -
II. VISIBILITY OF THE ISSUE
The Woburn hazardous waste problem has received extensive local
and national media coverage. Most Woburn residents, who are known
to be unsupportive of "issues," are aware that a hazqrdous waste
si te exists somewhere in Woburn, and that it is getting a lot of
press. Some feel the attention is giving Woburn a bad name. Most
residents, unless they live in northeast Woburn where the wells were
contaminated, do not think the problem potentially affects them.
The citizens of Reading, on the other hand, are much more aware
of and acti vely involved in the issue for a t least four reasons.
Reading residents are, on the whole, better educated and have bigger
property investments to protect than Woburn. They have been aware
of the problem in North Woburn for years longer and are more
mobilized because of it. They also are more directly affected by
the site: smells are more immediately attributable to the Woburn
waste than are potential long-term health effects. Finally, several
citizens from both Woburn and Reading mentioned that the Reading
form of government (open town meetings) is much more conducive to
active involvement than is the City of Woburn, with a strong mayor
and more centralized city bureaucracy.
At the state and regional level, Woburn is viewed as the first
priori ty for hazardous waste site clean-up, now that the Lowell,
I
Massachusetts, site is better under control. State and federal
legislators have a keen interest in keeping briefed on Woburn
site-related events and have passed bills or lobbied effectively for
money for the Woburn chemical dump testing and management.
III.
ACTORS
A. Agencies
1.
Local Off ic ials
The Mayor of Woburn and his administration are very
much affected by the problems which surface in their city,
particularly when the scope of the problem expands beyond their
means to control the issue, to abate the problem, or even to
understand the problem fully. The mayor and his administration were
able to turn the economy of the City of Woburn around in the
seventies by attracting new industry to the old manufacturing town.
One of the centerpieces of the prosperous, new Woburn was the
development of Industr iplex-128 on what had been wasteland. With
the discovery of an uncontrolled hazardous waste site in their city,
present through no fault of any living person, the administration
realistically sees a future loss of new residents and businesses who
fear "the water" or merely the idea of a hazardous waste site in the
city. The mayor feels that his best strategy in Woburn is to try
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 109 -
not to call any more attention to the problem than
and hope that the developer, the state, or the EPA
a clean-up solution that is publicly acceptable.
there is already,
will come up with
The City Engineer is even more directly involved in this issue
than is the mayor, for he approved the dev~loper's plans and permit
applications throughout the development period. He still has the
engineering plans for the sealing of the chromium lagoons and feels
the arsenic can be contained similarly. Why these plans were never
carried out during the early stages of Industriplex development is
not understood; the c'ity does not feel responsible. The City
Engineer is one of Woburn's representatives on the CAC.
Another city representative at the Wednesday night meetings is
the Woburn Conservation Commissioner. The Conservation Commission
was on hand several times during the Industriplex development period
to protest the use of illegal, "slimy and putrid" fill material in
the wetlands of the Ab~rjona River. At the time, the developer's
standard answer to all agency protests was that the body had no
jurisdiction over his operations, that another agency did. The
Woburn Conservation Commission was no exception. Now that all
levels of government have met in a more united front, the
Conservation Commission's interests in preserving the land and water
quality in Woburn are being addressed.
The Woburn Board of Health, with no full-time staff, is not
qualified to intervene in matters of such complexity as the
interactive effects of the various chemicals potentially abroad in
Woburn and their effect on the public health. In some states, local
health boards are well-funded, and well- staffed. The Woburn Board
is neither of those; satisfied with being kept informed, it leaves
the health studies to the state.
The Woburn City Council has been actively involved and
interested in the hazardous waste site problem. The City Council
called the first public meeting in September 1979 with the state and
federal engineers to answer questions on the Industriplex site
investigations. The Council formed a three-person Subcommittee on
Hazardous Waste to keep apprised of the progress of the site
studies, but the Council feels that the problem is "bigger than the
City of Woburn." Like the citizens of Woburn, they are concerned
about all public health findings and also about the impact of the
problem on area business and property values. But they are most
interested in matters of health.
The official body in Reading is its Town Selectmen. Reading has
been active longer and more effectively in the Woburn waste problem,
because of its citizens' groups and because of the way the town has
been able to respond to the problem. Reading, as a town, has been
able to intervene effectively in the state consent decree with the
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- no -
Industriplex developer when it was excluded from the initial
negotiations. Another member of the C.A.C. is Reading's
Conservation Commissioner, who makes sure Reading I s concerns about
airborne pollutants are taken into consideration in any management
decision over the Industriplex site.
2.
State Agencies
The Department of Environmental Quality Engineering
has been involved in the Woburn site throughout the Industriplex
development phase, initially under the DEQE's former title of the
Department of Natural Resources. The original DNR permit mentioned
capping the old Stauffer chemical lagoons as a condition of
development, giving evidence of the state's knowledge of the
chromium lagoons a decade before they became a major public issue.
In the mid-seventies, when most of the Industriplex development was
constructed with little regard to the air pollution nuisance or the
integrity of wetlands fill, the state government was being
reorganized. In 1977, the DEQE was well enough established to fight
the developer on his air pollution violations. The Town of Reading
was happy to see some official action, after years of complaints.
According to Reading residents, however, the state did not pursue
the developer vigorously enough. The odor was still present after
cease and desist orders from the State Attorney General, so Reading
itself, through its Board of Selectmen and town attorney, went to
court against the developer.
In the 1979 discoveries, the DEQE was consulted by the federal
si te investigators from EPA and the Army Corps of Enginee-rs. DEQE
had done a study in April 1979 researching the history of the
property and speculating on what chemicals might be present. That
spring, DEQE and Reading had taken the second developer, to whom
D'Annolfo had sold his enjoined properties, to court to work out an
agreement to abate the odor. When the July 1979 tests of the site
proved the presence of open hazardous chemical deposits, the state
was still in court with the two developers on the odor nuisance.
The DEQE and state Attorney General expanded the existing case to
include the wetlands violations, the water pollution aspects, and
the hazardous waste problem as well as the air pollution issue. The
state consent decree being negotiated is very similar to the federal
decree, due to early coordination of the federal and state engineers
and attorneys in August 1979. One difference is that all three
co-plaintiffs, DEQE, Woburn, and Reading, must agree on the approval
of testing, clean-up, and monitoring decisions on the Industriplex
site.
The DEQE has been very open and responsive to citizens since
hazardous waste problem became an issue. Although DEQE has a
small staff, less than 30 professionals, they have given
personal attention to Woburn. DEQE representatives have
the
very
much
been
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 111 -
present at every public meeting on the subject, and a DEQE engineer
attends the CAC meetings each Wednesday night to answer questions
and receive citizen comments.
The Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs has also
been responsive to the hazardous waste problem in Woburn. As a part
of the governor's office, the Secretary has general oversight over
all state environmental and natural resource agencies. According to
the Secretary's 1981 plan, Woburn is the number two priority for the
state in uncontrolled hazardous waste goals. Promulgating state
regulations on hazardous waste sites is the state's first priority.
In May 1980, the Secretary formed the Citizens' Advisory Committee
on the Woburn site issue, and has met with the CAC chairperson
several times since to keep abreast of the problem.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has a vi tal role
to play in the Woburn hazardous waste problem, warning the citizens
of nearby communities what exposure they may have to hazardous
chemicals through various environmental media, what health effects
the substances can cause, and what residents can do to prevent the
health problems. The MDPH has been involved in the problem at
Woburn for over a century. having tested the water in Woburn for
dissolved hydrogen sulfide in 1863. Until recently. specific
responses to Woburn have always involved an odor problem. When the
high and growing cancer death rate was found in Woburn in 1979, the
MDPH followed up with two more intensive studies. Because the first
study was only a statistical count of those whose cause of death was
listed as cancer, not actual incidence of cancer, the second study
investigated cancer in Woburn from hospital records -- a" difficult
process since Massachusetts has no tumor registry. The second study
confirmed the first statistical analysis and found the leukemia rate
in Woburn to be over two times the national average. The report of
the third study is due in October 1980. This is a modified case
study with 47-cases and 30 control subjects who were questioned on
their length of residence, jobs, habits, and family history as well
as their medical problems.
Although the MDPH addresses an issue of great concern to the
citizens, they have been less involved in the public
information/citizen participation process than the DEQE or the
federal agencies. According to the latter, the MDPH is not a "team
player." The MDPH answered questions at the two April public
meetings, but has not been involved with the CAC process. Their
responsiveness to specific questions and requests for studies,
however, has helped those who are interested in the health problem.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 112 -
3.
Federal Agencies
The Region I Environmental Protection Agency has been
involved in the Woburn site since June 1979 when (as noted above) an
EPA wetlands engineer noticed illegal fili activity on the site and
notified the Army Corps of Engineers. EPA personnel and labs did
soil and water sampling and testing for the Corps, and have followed
up the July 1979 tests with more extensive testing in August 1980.
Citizen activists feel EPA has been very responsive to local
inquiries and give much of the credi t to the EPA site coordinator
located in EPA Field Office in Lexington, just west of Woburn. The
local people are not as pleased with the speed of response to the
needs for testing and containment of the hazardous chemicals. A
year passed before the second round of water tests were done to
measure the migration of the chemicals off-site, and air monitoring
stations are planned but not in place at the time this report was
drafted. Eleven months passed before EPA put up wire fences and
warning signs around the chemical pits. But the townspeople did
appreciate EPA taking these protective measures. At least, they did
not have to wait for the developer to do so.
EPA is presumed to be the only agency with the money and
manpower to clean up the site if the developer reneges. Even if he
does agree to do the work necessary to contain the wastes, the
concerned citizens will want EPA as well as the state agencies to
oversee the project to assure that it is done properly and on
schedule.
Like some of the other cases studied, Woburn community leaders
believe that EPA should use their site with its multiple
chemicals, multi-media pollution problems, and potential public
health effects -- as a prototype for managing other hazardous waste
site clean-ups. EPA has moved in that direction by appointing a
site coordinator, but the approach to testing and management appears
somewhat piecemeal. With the intergovernmental coordination as
smooth as it has become at this site, many feel EPA should use a
more comprehensive approach at Woburn. That, however, would take
more resources than EPA has allocated to the Woburn problem --
resources that are highly limited.
The Army Corps of Engineers took the initial federal action in
the Woburn Industriplex case. They are well-regarded by the Reading
citizens as the first government body able to put a stop to the
North Woburn development. Like the EPA and DEQE, the Corps has been
present at all public meetings and C.A.C. meetings to answer
questions and field citizen complaints. At this point, the Corps of
Engineers is not viewed as the longer-term manager of the waste site
cleanup. The Corps does not have the chemical testing laboratories
EPA uses, and their authority does not extend beyond wetlands dredge
and fill permitting.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 113 -
A host of othe r federal agencies have been involved in the
Woburn hazardous waste problem less centrally than EPA and the
Corps. The U.S. Fish and wildlife Bureau was involved with the 1979
investigation of the illegal wetlands fill and its impact on the
flora and fauna of the Aberjona River and downstream. The National
Center for Disease Control was consulted by Rev. Young on the
leukemia problem, and by the MDPH in designing the epidemiological
study of the cancer incidence in Woburn. The Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have been involved. An OSHA
investigator was called in to test the safety of the air around the
decaying animal hides for worker exposure in July 1977 and was
himself sickened. NIOSH has not yet been involved with the
Industriplex workers, but has studied kidney cancer problems of
workers in a cat food factory about a mile north of the Industriplex
waste areas. As Industriplex company workers organize, these
agencies may be called into the Woburn problem more directly.
B.
Interest Groups
1.
Ad Hoc Groups
The only ad hoc interest group formed to date in the
City of Woburn is FACE (For a Cleaner Environment). It was
organized in January 1980 after the site was exposed by the media as
a major problem. An EPA employee who lives in Woburn met Rev. Bruce
Young at one of the fall 1979 public meetings and a core group of
about ten people, mostly from the affected East Woburn, formed
around the two organizers. The group has an agenda for seven areas
of concern, but public health is by far the central focus. Rev.
young, the key figure in FACE, is highly respected by almost
everyone interviewed because of his persistence in following the
leukemia and hazardous waste problems and his hesitance in going
beyond established facts in the case. Young is a Woburn
representative on the CAC.
The other major local interest group presently involved in the
hazardous waste issue is the long-running CAP, Citizens Against
Pollution, from Reading. Formed in 1977, the group consolidated in
January 1978 when Reading brought suit against the Industriplex
developer for the hydrogen sulfide odor nuisance. The Reading
residents in general and CAP members specifically are more active
and involved in the problem than the Woburn g roup has yet been.
Al though CAP was initially interested only in the odor problem,
including the health effects of breathing hydrogen sulfide and other
chemicals blown over the town line, CAP now ,takes a broader view of
the hazardous waste problem. At first, CAP worked actively to
prevent any disturbance of the hides, but now the Reading group
better understands the complexity of the health problem as well as
ICF INCORPOR4TE[
-------
- 114 -
the nuisance. Reading citizens realize that the hides may need to
be moved in order to clean up the site. Through letters, phone
calls to state and federal officials, and representation on the CAC,
CAP intends to be sure that the air pollution problem is addressed
in any clean-up scheme. At one point, however, just before the
April public meetings, a faction broke from CAP, advocating a more
radical stand. Members wearing gas masks handed out leaflets at the
Woburn Industriplex Mall advertising the Woburn problem and the
April 1, 1980, public meeting. After a brief flurry of media
interest, this group, Citizens for Direct Action, folded back into
CAP.
Three broader-based environmental interest groups have become
involved in the Woburn hazardous waste site issue. The Mystic River
Watershed Association (MRWA) is a regional, watershed-wide
environmental group interested in preserving the quality of the
Mystic River, Mystic Lakes, and their tributaries, of which the
Aberjona River and its Industriplex wetland is one. The MRWA is
involved in pollution cases throughout the watershed, but the Woburn
case, due to its potential magnitude and the extent of media
involvement, has received much attention from the MWRA. Its
president, Dr. Herbert Meyer, is a member of the CAC and speaks at
the meetings for special consideration of groundwater contamination
from the site. Friends of the Earth is another group based in
Boston which has become involved with the Woburn waste problem.
Their representatives have aided the Woburn FACE group in
particular, helping them write press releases on their meetings and
findings. The third broader group involved in the Woburn problem
since the 1979 publicity is the Safe Drinking Water Coalition, a
regional water quality group.
2.
Community Groups
{)ther groups in the community which are not solely
concerned with environmental .or public health problems have become
involved in the Woburn problem include the League of Women Voters in
Winchester and Wilmington. Woburn has no LOWV at present, again
demonstrating its general non-involvement in issues.
The North Suburban Chamber of Commerce, a thirteen-community
businessmen I s organization, has been concerned about public health
and the effects of the Woburn hazardous waste problem on business
since the media attention in fall 1979. This group, however, has
not coordinated with any of the other interest groups and is
generally unaware of what the others are doing. On its own, the
NSCC put out a report on the hazardous waste site at Industriplex
and has been sending telegrams to federal legislators advocating
Superfund. They are also urging the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to
back the bill. In its Woburn site involvement, the NSCC has been
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 115 -
accused of "shooting from the hip" in its first pronouncements
criticizing state and federal action and the efficacy of the C.A.C.
The NSCC was later invited to join the C.A.C., but the business
group does not want to become involved in any advisory body until
its responsibilities are better defined (for example, by means of
the formal Management .Commi ttee suggested by the Hart Report, (see
page 61). The NSCC businesspeople have a legitimate interest in the
clean-up process, which they want to see performed as quickly as is
feasible. Members of the Chamber of Commerce have businesses in
Industriplex and are themselves exposed eight hours a day to any
mig rating hazardous chemicals. The business leaders also have had
trouble recruiting employees to the area, and they worry about the
resale value of their property. The NSCC could help bring money and
management expertise into the public participation process; however,
some of the other less-powerful groups are afraid of being coopted
or taken over by "business interests."
3.
Industrial Representatives
William D I Annolfo of the Mark Phillip Realty Trust is
often painted the villain in the Woburn problem. However, D'Annolfo
did not put the wastes on the site, regardless of whether or not he
made aQY effort to properly contain the wastes he found there or to
prevent the current problems. With extensive federal, state, and
media involvement, an acceptable plan is being drawn for chemical
containment to be overseen by federal, state, and local officials.
The developer's concern is to make a profit on the final third of
the Industriplex-128 site. The costs of containing the wastes,
completing all the testing, and taking precautions against odors, in
addi tion to the grading, filling, and road-building necessary to
complete the site for industry will be high. Costs for preliminary
testing of the location, concentration, and migration of the
chemicals alone will cost $250,000. Should the costs be higher than
the potential- return on the sale of the developed land, D' Annolfo
will quit the project and declare the Trust bankrupt. For this
reason, the state and federal officials are working with D' Annolfo
on a consent decree; they are also working with concerned citizens.
The government would rather persuade D'Annolfo to pay for the
clean-up. Since July 1979, the developer has demonstrated good
faith by suspending operations and even sending a representative to
the C.A.C. meetings to hear citizen concerns, but, to date,
D'Annolfo has performed no clean-up operations or testing.
4.
Labor Groups
Employees of Industriplex do not belong to any single
union, but in September 1980, a group of employees met with members
of FACE to discuss issues of mutual interest, mainly, the public
heal th issue. Exposure to the chemicals on the site, especially
ICF INCORPORA,TED
-------
- 116 -
airborne particulates, will have the first and heaviest impact on
those who work near the site every day. This is the concern of the
employees' group, as yet unnamed.
C.
Legislative Actors
1.
State Level
Again in matters of legislation, Reading actors have
gotten involved faster and have been more effective. The Reading
State Representa- tive, Michael Barret, was instrumental in getting
a special state appropria- tion of $100,000 for the site clean-up.
He has also been involved in the state consent decree negotiations.
Woburn State Senator Rotundi helped the state funding pass the other
state house. Rep. Nick Paleologus from Woburn became involved later
than the others but has been supportive of FACE.
2.
Federal Level
Representative Edward Markey has been involved locally
wi th the hazardous waste problem in Woburn and supports Superfund
strongly in the House. His district administrative aide is in
contact with the local ad hoc groups. Rep. Tip O'Neill from the
district south of Woburn has been contacted by the Chamber of
COmmerce group and supports Superfund to the point of saying that he
would call a lame-duck session if the bill is not resolved before
the November 1980 elections.
Senator Tsongas held a "town meeting" in Woburn in March 1980
where he listened to citizen concerns about the abandoned hazardous
waste problem. Senator Kennedy has received letters and phone calls
on the problem in Woburn and has assigned a district staff person to
represent him at all public meetings on the subject. Kennedy also
held a Senate hearing on June 6, 1980, where he listened to
testimony from Rev. Bruce Young, another member of FACE, and the
president of CAP on suspected public health effects of the hazardous
wastes in Woburn.
D.
Media
1.
Newspapers
Two local papers have treated the Woburn hazardous
waste site issue very differently. The Woburn Daily Times reporter
assigned to Cover the Industriplex site story is cited in almost all
interviews as very conscientious and careful to check all facts
before publishing a story. The local media in Woburn has been
praised for keeping the issue alive in Woburn without resorting to
exaggeration or allegation. The Woburn reporter won a UPI/New
England Newspaper Editorial Award in 1979 for his editorials on the
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
-117-
haza rdous waste problem in Woburn. On the othe r hand, the Reading
Chronicle, until recently a weekly newspaper, was said to have as
sensationalized the stories of chemicals and smells in Woburn.
The Boston papers received mixed reviews from those involved in
the Woburn case. Some felt that the Herald and especially the Globe
simplified the problem, lihking the chemicals and local health
problems without a caveat. Woburn officials did not appreciate the
region-wide publicity. Others recognized that the more regional
papers must spend less time on anyone issue and must therefore
gloss over some of the finer distinctions. A weekly Boston
newspape r, the ReaJ Pape r, published a lengthy feature article on
the Woburn hazardous waste problem in May 1980. The article is
considered the most complete newspaper account of the situation.
2.
Broadcast
Television, by its nature, provides a much less
detailed, less analytical account of an event or issue. Since fall
1979, local and national television has featured Woburn in almost
every discussion of public health linked with hazardous waste
problems. A recent local cable television documentary focused on
the Woburn chemical waste problems and featured panel discussions
with the major actors.
IV. COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
Communicating information from government agencies to the public
about a hazardous waste site is one of the important functions of
citizen participation. Informed citizen participation is much more
positive and useful than an uninformed or misinformed public. At
Woburn, citizens can generally be well informed through the media.
Those most actively involved have fairly free access to officials
with suppleme~tary information.
A.
Sources of Information
Area citizens do not see Woburn City officials as a
credible source of information on the hazardous waste site.
Citizens feel that the local government officials knew of the
Industriplex site problems long before they came to public attention
and did nothing about those problems. Many citizens believe
cover-up theories and stories of the political influence of the
developer at local and state levels. Distrust is so strong that
many East Woburn families believe that Woburn water is still unsafe,
despite extensive tests to the contrary, and they buy bottled
water. Although the residents may not understand the technical
aspects of the problem, they feel they do know the local political
aspects, and they do not trust their local government to handle the
hazardous waste site problem.
ICF 1t.Jf"'f'\DDI"\O\TEI
-------
- U8 -
Information from state officials has in the public view, fewer
partisan overtones. But Reading CAP members are still suspicious of
the state's failure to stop the odors from Industriplex development
in the '70's. Residents want answers to questions about exposure to
the chemicals; they want to know what low-level, long-term exposure
might do to their health and their children's health. No one has
those answers, although some of the 'Woburn citizens may expect
definite answers when the state epidemiological studies are released
in October 1980.
Local residents consider federal officials--the Army Corps of
Engineers and the EPA--their most credible sources of information.
In the public's view, federal scientists and engineers are removed
from local politics. In this case, however, the federal team lost
some of its good standing at the beginning by communiating poorly
with the local officials and press. The local people did not find
out until over a month after test results were in that a major
hazardous waste problem existed in North Woburn. Later,
communications were greatly improved, although Woburn activists are
not happy with the physical progress of clean-up at the waste site.
Federal officials must take care not to raise local expectations
about the solution they may be able to offer or the time it will
take, especially, as in the Woburn case, when no federal program.
exists for cleaning up abandoned hazardous waste sites.
The media--newspapers, television, radio--generally have the
highest credibility. people feel that the press has no particular
stake in the issue, as government officials have, and that the press
has better access to the right officials'. The more active citizens,
however, are sensitive to any distortion or misstatement of facts
about a site made by the press.
B.
Types of Information
Most of the information provided by government officials to
Woburn and Reading citizens has been general information, as opposed
to raw technical data. Citizens may request and will receive the
technical results of testing as well as an explanation of the
meaning of tested levels of chemicals in the air, water or soil.
Conflicting information on the Industriplex site was fairly
common through the seventies as the developer practiced a "divide
and conquer" strategy against local and state regulations. Since
the appointment of an EPA coordinator in January 1980, most
distortions or conflicts of information, at least among the active
citizenry. have been corrected.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 119 -
C.
Effect of Information on the Public
When the news broke in September 1979 that the Woburn site
was a serious hazardous waste problem, reactions were mixed. Woburn
officials were furious they had not been consulted on the federal
waste and soil sampling results. Reading residents felt vindicated
that there was a serious problem in Woburn. Many connected the
findings with the closure Qf the G and H Wells in East Woburn in May
1979, although no trichloroethylene or chloroform has been
discovered on the Industriplex waste site. The visibility of the
hazardous waste issue increased dramatically in December 1979 when
MDPH released the cance r death study. With each major release of
information about the site, the problems appear worse and the issue
becomes more salient. The residents only become more frustrated as
new aspects of the hazardous waste problem emerge, partly because no
plan for solving these problems has been put into effect.
Although the series of public meetings and C.A.C. process has
greatly helped educate the active minority, many local citizens have
a distorted view of the situation. The average resident of Woburn
still traces the problem to the Woburn water, and many parents of
children with leukemia firmly believe that the Industriplex site
wastes are the cause of Woburn cancer.
Publicity about the site and the cancer problem has had a number
of negative effects on the town. Rev. Young, EPA 9fficials, and the
Woburn city engineer receive telephone calls from people considering
buying a home or becoming employed in Woburn, aSking whether it is
safe there.
v.
METHODS OF INTERACTION
A.
Public Meetings
The most prevalent form of participation offered py
government officials thus far in Woburn is the public informational
meeting. As no decisions about the site clean-up have yet been
made, no public hearings have been required. Unless the developer
goes bankrupt and remands the property to the state for clean-up, no
public hearings will be held; the state and federal consent decrees
will prescribe containment methods without benefit of public
comment. Public meetings called thus far have presented the problem
of the site, discussed possible health effects, and presented the
Hart Management Report.
B.
Citizens' Advisory Committee (C.A.C.)
At this site alone, among the four cases presented here, a
C.A.C. was formed. The state, in May 1980, called for a C.A.C.
under the provisions of its Environmental Protection Act, to channel
ICF 11IJ("I"\DDi"\D'I
-------
- 120 -
and legitimize citizen input. C.A.C. members represent the City of
Woburn, the Town of Reading, FACE, CAP, MRWA, the League of Women
voters in Wilmington, and the Town of Winchester. Although the
problems at the Industriplex site and the solutions set in the
consent decrees constitute actions with major environmental impact,
the fact that the state consent decree is still tied up in the
courts at the time of this report leaves the Ci tizens Advisory
Committee with little opportunity to advise. The group spent the
summer of 1980 studying the problem to date and becoming acquainted
with each others' positions. Members feel that the experience of
sitting down and examining each others I positions has lessened the
likelihood of conflict. Without the resumption of a more
substantive agenda, however, the C.A.C., which has been so helpful
in disseminating information and correcting misunderstandings, may
dissolve for lack of mission.
C.
Other Forms of Interaction
Telephone calls and letters to officials voicing citizen
concerns, generally the concerns of those about to move into or out
of Woburn, have been frequent since September 1979. A more informal
yet significant exchange between government officials and area
citizens took place in July 1979 when federal investigations met
wi th residents near the site to research the local history of the
Industriplex site. One of the North Woburn residents had worked for
the chemical and glue factories and knew of other chemical pits and
lagoons on the site, as well as the existence of deeply buried
chemical drums.
Another kind of citizen participation in the process occurred
when Reading CAP formed the impetus behind the Town of Reading's
lawsuit against the Industriplex odor nuisance. Reading's
involvement in the current consent degree was confirmed at a public
hearing held by the Town Council on August 22, 1980.
VI. EFFECTS OF PARTICIPATION
A.
Effects on the Community
Participation in Woburn, limited to FACE, a half dozen
public meetings, and .memberships in the Chamber of Commerce, has
helped increase public awareness of the problem without overly
alarming many citizens. Those citizens with liver or kidney cancer
or leukemia naturally tend to blame the waste site, and some have
become very frustrated at the lack of action in cleaning up the
site. Officials I lack of answers to citizen questions on human
exposure and health effects has also increased frustrations. The
residents do not know what to do to prevent health problems from the
chemicals.
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 121 -
Communi ty image has also suffered from the combination of the
hazardous waste problem, the odors, and the cancer rate. City
officials worry about the public financial problems this adverse
publicity is causing. City administration officials do not have the
expertise, the manpower, or the money to do the monitoring and
clean-up necessary at the site. Woburn will be dependent on federal
and state funding if the developer abando.ns the Industriplex site.
Local officials and some citizens view the process of public
participation as burdensome because citizen involvement complicates
and slows the clean-up process. Some city officials also resent the
extended press coverage of city problems. Other city officials
enthusiastically support the citizens' right and duty to know about
problems that affect them and their community. and would like to see
more activism in Woburn.
B.
Effects on Policy
Participation in Woburn occurred only after government
officials were aware of the hazardous waste problem. Therefore,
citizen participation from Woburn has not had much effect on
official awareness of the problem, and has only marginally helped
speed the process of testing and appropriating funds. When a policy
choice must be made on containing the chemicals, officials may hear
more from the Woburn citizens.
Reading citizens, on the other hand, have been agitating for
official action on the Woburn odor problem for years. The odor
problem as perceived earlier is only one aspect of the current
issue. More vigorous investigation of the site when Reading
complained of the odors in the early' 70' s, including cross-checks
with the original permit, might have revealed the chemical
contamination problem much earlier. Now, however, Reading has been
accused of slowing the clean-up process. The initial state consent
decree negotiations, completed and signed in February 1980, had not
included Reading. That town has a strong interest in the air
pollution problems that may be caused by the clean-up process
itself. Failure to include Reading, and Reading's appeal, has cost
area citizens three extra months of worry and frustration. Had the
state decree been ready, the developer's clean-up schedule would
have begun when the federal consent decree was signed in May. Here,
lack of participation resulted in delays and lost effectiveness.
Rev. Bruce Young's efforts to expose the cancer problem in
Woburn have been highly lauded. His careful persistence and his
subsequent vindication have earned him the trust of the community.
He continues to bring this force to bear on officials to speed up
the process.
ICF INCORPORATE[
-------
- 122 -
Government efforts to increase citizen participation have
generally eased problems and avoided potential ones. The state's
provision for the C.A.C. has helped coordinate citizen response and
has provided a weekly forum for the exchange of ideas between
citizens and government. Had this body existed earlier, the
prob~ems with Reading and the consent decree might have been
avoided. The federal EPA site coordinator has been a touchstone for
both citizens and government officials to assure coordination and
responsiveness. After a few initial blunders involving poor
communication with the local administrations in Woburn and Reading,
the program of citizen involvement in the site clean-up and
monitoring at Woburn, down stream, and down wind, is functioning
smoothly. The problems now to be solved in the Woburn case are
timeliness of clean-up and funding.
VI II .
SUMMATION
The Woburn case differs from some of the other sites studied in
the reduced emotionalism and impatience displayed by the local
residents. The reason may be that government treated citizens
concerns more sensitively her than elsewhere. While Woburn and
nearby communities are very concerned, the citizen groups have
tended not to make unreasonable demands on EPA or the state. It is
true that Woburn residents do not trust local officials to handle
clean-up of the site. Local government's inexperience, past record
of inaction and lack of funds do not recommend it. Nonetheless, the
animosity towards government seen in Jackson Township has not
characterized the Woburn problem.
The pattern of parti~ipation in ad hoc citizens' groups
continues at the Woburn site. Those directly affected -- by the
smells, by the suspected long-term health effects -- tend to become
involved, and these residents generally do not have a history of
citizen activism, in fact, quite the contrary in Woburn. A
relatively apathetic community is forming interest groups for the
first time. In Woburn, however, the residents with a stake in the
solution to the problem, those who feel they are affected by the
hazardous wastes, have not opted for some of the more flamboyant
tactics of their counterparts in other sites. For instance, they
have not invited any Love Canal spokespeople to date to address
Woburn public meetings, and they have not encouraged parallels to
Love Canal.
Perhaps the level of frustration in Woburn is lower than at
other sites studied because the hazardous waste site has been a
major issue for only a year, while the others have been in the
public eye longer. Another explanation for the lowered
disillusionment among citizens at the Woburn site may be the
conscientious efforts of state and federal authorities to keep the
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 123 -
local government, interest groups, and the
progress of clean-up decisions and involved,
in that process.
public informed of the
to the extent possible,
ICI= 11Ut"'l"\o"''''''''ATEI
-------
- 124 -
PROJECT STAFF
This report was prepared by ICF Incorporated based on
interviews, analyses, and other substantive contributions from ICF
staff and its subcontractors. ICF staff for this project include:
Edwin Berk, James Edwards, Mitchell Gaynor, Michael Gibbs, Lori
Hashizume, Jim Janis (Project Manager), Sara Nielsen and Mimi
Voorhees. We were assisted in this effort by outstanding support
from Phyllis Austin, Nathaniel Watkins, and ZelIa Williams.
Subcontractors and consultants include: Ethan Eldon Associates,
The George Washington Uni versi ty Policy Cente r, Michael Clarke, Tom
Ingersoll, Sheldon Kamieniecki, Lester Milbrath, Robert 0 'Connor,
Gardner Shaw, Bruce Stiftel, and Richard Tobin.
...
ICF INCORPORATED
-------
- 125 -
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ICF staff wishes to acknowledge the contribution of the EPA
project manager, Dr. Steve Cohen, to the successful completion of
this effort. Without the advice and encouragement of Steve COhen
and his colleagues, Lee Danneker and Julie Frazier, we would not
have been able to complete this work on a timely basis.
ICF Incorporated also acknowledges the contribution of Paul
Brands and Tim Matlack of AMS Incorporated, who acted as the general
managers of this contractual effort.
ICF INCORPORATE
------- |