OPA (A-107)
UNITED STATES
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, O.C. 20460
OFFIC IA L BUSINESS
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SISEnvironmental News
Deister (202) 755-0344
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1975
EPA RESERVE MINING PANEL TO VISIT POLLUTION SITE
The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that
the interagency Task Force established to monitor the water
clean-up progress of the Reserve Mining Company will hold its
next meeting during late June in Duluth, Minnesota.
At that time the group will visit Reserve's plant at
nearby Silver Bay, as well as several proposed on-land waste
disposal sites. The plant now dumps into Lake Superior its
process taconite tailings, which re waste particles from
which iron ore has been magnetically extracted.
The on-site visits will allow the panel to observe first-
hand Reserve's present waste disposal practices and to survey
land disposal sites which may provide an alternative to the
Company's continuing contamination of Lake Superior.
Reserve was ordered by the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals on March 14, 1975 to reach agreement with the State
of Minnesota within a reasonable time on a site for disposal
of the tailings on land. EPA Administrator Russell E. Train
formed the Task Force, with the cooperation of other Federal
agencies, to work with the State in monitoring the progress
made in complying with the court order. EPA will take legal
action if it determines that Reserve's clean-up efforts are
unsatisfactory.
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The Task Force is composed of experts in air and water
pollution, geology, economics, legal and other fields. This
varied expertise will permit detailed technical consideration
of the hydrologic, legal, health, water supply, geologic
and economic implications of the Reserve problem and proposed
solutions.
The Task Force Chairman is Dr. Robert W. Zeller of EPA,
a sanitary engineer with extensive past experience in the
Reserve case. The other members and their specific areas of
expertise are:
~William McC. Reid, a civil engineer, hydrologist and
geophysicist with EPA, and Executive Secretary of the Task
Force.
~Philip M. Cook, an EPA chemist and recognized expert on
the environmental aspects of the Reserve case; he will provide
technical background information to the Task Force.
~Bruce B. Hanshaw, a geochemist and hydrologist with the
U.S. Geological Survey who will evaluate the groundwater
implications of the Reserve problem.
~Clarence Oster, an EPA sanitary engineer and Director
of the Agency's District Office for Minnesota and Wisconsin.
~Ernest L. Dodson, Chief of the Soil Mechanics Branch,
Engineering Division, Army Corps of Engineers; he will evaluate
the structural integrity of proposed tailings disposal facili-
ties .
*Vita Dan Kealy, a mining research engineer with the U.S.
Bureau of Mines; he will also evaluate the structural inte-
grity of proposed disposal facilities.
*Irving E. Wallen, of EPA's Office of Toxic Substances;
he is experienced with the problems posed by asbestos in the
environment.
~Stanley Cuffe, Chief of EPA's Office of Control Tech-
nology, Durham, North Carolina, and an expert in the problem
of asbestos as an air pollutant.
~Pamela P. Quinn, an attorney with the EPA Office of
General Counsel with wide experience in legal matters associated
with the Reserve case.
~Robert L. Coughlin, an EPA economist, expert in the
economic and energy impacts of pollution control activities.
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He will contribute to the economic assessment of alternative
solutions to the Reserve problem.
*Gary S. Logsdon, a research sanitary engineer at EPA's
Water Supply Research Laboratory in Cincinnati, and Project
Officer for a study of water filtration for asbestiform fiber
removal. He will address the water supply and treatment
implications of the Reserve problem.
*Warren R. Muir, a chemist representing the President's
Council on Environmental Quality.
*Thomas F. Bastow, an attorney with the Pollution Control
Section, U.S. Department of Justice, with wide experience in
the Reserve case.
*George M. Watts, Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers
Coastal Engineering Research Center; he will address the prob-
lem of chemical stabilization of the wastes dumped by Reserve
into Lake Superior.
EPA also plans to appoint to the Task Force specialists
to consider the health effects and solid waste management
implications of the Reserve case.
In February 1972, EPA had charged Reserve with polluting
Lake Superior by dumping 67,000 tons of taconite tailings into
the lake each day.
The case became significant from the standpoint of public
health when EPA reported in June 1973 that high concentrations
of asbestos-like fibers, traceable to the taconite wastes,
had been found in western Lake Superior. The City of Duluth
and a number of smaller communities take their drinking water
directly from that part of the lake.
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