Here's another troubling story about the Army Corps of Engineers. It starts at Schilling Air Force Base in Salina, KS, but may have implications well beyond.

As we've reported previously, a large plume of TCE contamination, suspected to be emanating from Schilling AFB, is currently migrating under residential neighborhoods in Salina and is headed towards city water supply wells. The Army Corps of Engineers is involved in the remediation investigation but their participation has faced great scrutiny.

Now, according to the Salina Journal, it appears the corps has been intentionally avoiding investigation/clean-up of an obvious potential source of TCE. Reacting to corps' claims that the alleged source-property was "never under [DOD] ownership or control," Salina officials were stunned.

“It was clear the corps intended to claim that the TCE contamination that was under the residential area was not their TCE, and so they had no responsibility to clean it up,” says Ilene Gaekwad, an environmental attorney who represents the city of Salina, the Salina Airport Authority, the Salina School District and Kansas State University at Salina. “What was so appalling about it was there was a liquid oxygen plant right near the location they were calling the source. We knew — and the military knows — LOX plants used enormous quantities of TCE.”

The Journal describes a suspicious history involving the corps and its repeated failure to investigate the LOX plant, despite having identified the plant as a suspected TCE source over 5 years ago.

But maybe we should cut the corp some slack. After all, how are they to know that some random LOX plant might be a TCE contamination source? Well...

Earlier this month, Salina City Manager Jason Gage sent Col. Michael Rossi, commander of the corps’ Kansas City district, an eight-page letter detailing the city’s frustration with the investigation. He spent two pages on the LOX plant issue.

“LOX plants are known by the Department of Defense to be heavy users of TCE, and have been found to be the source of TCE contamination at numerous current and former Air Force installations throughout the country (eg. Castle AFB, Pease AFB, Fairchild AFB, Warren AFB, Larson AFB),” Gage wrote. “As early as 1999 the corps recognized this former LOX plant at the former Schilling Air Force Base as a potential source of groundwater contamination. Despite this knowledge, in studies from 1999-2005 the corps never investigated the LOX plant as a TCE source for the northern plume.”

The story points out that city officials aren't the only ones concerned about the corps' performance. A Michigan-based contractor hired by the city has claimed that the corps "seriously miscalculated how long the plume will take to reach city wells" (the contractor revised the original corps estimate of 175 years down to 8) and has suggested that the corps lacks a fundamental understanding of geology and hydrology in the area. Further, EPA has criticized the corps' Salina data as incomplete, sometimes contradictory, and lacking transparency. EPA also accused the corps of failing to follow EPA rules for calculating risk, using questionable statistical methods, and improperly using TCE toxicity values.

We learn from the Journal that the concerns/lapses in Salina may not be unique:

Kay Havenor is a geologist in Roswell, N.M. He is co-chairman of the Restoration Advisory Board established there in connection with the corps’ cleanup of the former Walker Air Force Base. A RAB, as they are often called, acts as liaison between the corps and the community. Here in Salina, the RAB for the Schilling cleanup was formed in 2003.

Havenor says that today the relationship between the corps and the community is excellent, but it wasn’t always so.

“(Project management) was under the corps’ Tulsa office, and Tulsa just didn’t give a hoot what happened out here,” Havenor said. “They really didn’t. They were arrogant, and whenever they showed up for meetings they had more lawyers than we had attendees in the audience.”

Havenor said the corps seemed to have particular difficulty finding any contamination.

“If I had to guess, I would say they tried to pick the places where they wouldn’t find any, because they did a pretty good job of it,” he said.

For the entire story, see here.

Meantime, we can't help but wonder: Is the Army Corp of Engineers protecting military polluters? Given the lengths the DOD/military has gone to avoid protecting the public from TCE, this wouldn't surprise us a bit.

...to keep people safer from TCE, please encourage them to contact:



Jody Milanese (millaneese) in Congresswoman Sue Kelly's office at 202-225-5441

El Defensor Chieftain brings us an update to this story via an interview with a man who claims to be a former plant manager at Eagle Picher approx. 30 yrs ago. The man says, amongst other things:

· "If they're just checking for lead, they're just scratching the surface"
· [B]ased on the other chemicals and solvents used in the plant while he was there, "lead is a minor problem."
· "We used lots of chemicals and solvents..."
· Among the chemicals in use while he was there that he could recall were sodium hydroxide, acetone and trichloroethylene (or TCE).
· [H]e also thought they used a chemical containing cyanide.
· "Effluents from the plant ran into the lagoons, human and (manufacturing) wastes."[sic]
· [B]ased on what he observed while at the plant, "I wouldn't willingly walk over there through that dust."

Of course, they're not just checking for lead. As we reported earlier, they've discovered TCE contamination already and are checking for more. But you can read the full interview story here

From the Environmental News Network:

Nine states filed a lawsuit against the federal government Tuesday, challenging new regulations they say fail to protect children and expectant mothers from dangers posed by mercury emissions from power plants.

..."EPA's emissions trading plan will allow some power plants to actually increase mercury emissions, creating hot spots of mercury deposition and threatening communities," said Attorney General Peter Harvey of New Jersey, lead plaintiff in the case. "It's an anti-human health position. The EPA is putting private profit ahead of public health, and it's a mistake."

...The eight other states involved in the suit are California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

From El Defensor Chieftain (NM):

State and federal documents raise the possibility that the Eagle Picher property north of Socorro slipped through the environmental cracks on a number of fronts. A real-time grid survey of the property scheduled Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to determine if that is the case and to what extent.

Sabino Rivera, an environmental specialist with the state Environment Department, said this week that in addition to testing for lead in the soil, the EPA will also be sampling for solvents that were used in different manufacturing processes in the Eagle Picher plant and on the property over three decades. Rivera is the state's Eagle Picher project manager and liaison with the EPA. The state agency conducts monitoring for the federal agency.

Rivera said the primary solvent compound to be sampled in the testing is trichloroethylene, or TCE, which he said has shown up periodically in groundwater tests of some domestic and city wells. He said TCE has shown up in the city's Eagle Picher and Olsen wells. The Olsen well is now offline, according to the city.

Related Posts (on one page):

1. EPA clears Eagle Picher site for use, despite ongoing TCE concerns (NM)
2. Ex plant manager reveals concerns about Eagle Picher (NM)
3. Eagle Picher tests for trichloroethylene (NM)

More from the GAO Report, as promised. Please bear in mind:

· 85% of the sites below were discovered 15 yrs ago or more
· over 60% of the potentially eligible sites and over 35% of all sites below report no clean-up activities

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Table IV.1: Sites Classified as Awaiting an NPL Decision in Each State, by Eligibility for Listing and Status of Cleanup Progress
+
Table VI.1: State Officials’ Assessments of States’ Financial Capabilities to Clean Up Potentially Eligible Sites

State	Number of sites classified as awaiting an NPL decision	Number of sites unlikely to become eligible for the NPL	Number of potentially eligible sites with some cleanup activities	Number of potentially eligible sites with no reported cleanup activities	Number of sites for which no surveys were received	State officials’ assessment of state’s financial capability to clean up potentially eligible sites
Alabama	25	10	7	8	0	Very poor
Alaska	28	14	8	6	0	Excellent
Arizona	34	16	10	8	0	Excellent
Arkansas	4	3	0	1	0	Good
California	a 189	64	51	74	0	Fair
Colorado	30	12	10	6	2	Very poor
Connecticut	290	74	98	118	0	Poor
Delaware	1	1	0	0	0	Excellent
District of Columbia	a 1	0	0	1	0
Florida	269	74	85	110	0	Fair
Georgia	74	39	8	27	0	Poor
Guam	2	2	0	0	0
Hawaii	17	12	4	1	0	Fair
Idaho	16	5	5	6	0	*
Illinois	207	95	43	69	0	Fair
Indiana	54	21	15	18	0	Very poor
Iowa	33	29	4	0	0	Very poor
Kansas	37	28	4	5	0	Very poor
Kentucky	20	15	2	3	0	Good
Louisiana	10	6	4	0	0	Poor
Maine	56	28	17	11	0	Poor
Maryland	20	8	4	8	0	Other b
Massachusetts	a 201	11	19	171	0	Fair
Michigan	50	22	18	10	0	Excellent
Midway Island	1	1	0	0	0
Minnesota	17	6	6	5	0	Good
Mississippi	9	4	1	2	2	Very poor
Missouri	91	73	7	11	0	*
Montana	11	2	7	2	0	Very poor
Navajo Nation	14	0	0	14	0
Nebraska	a 36	16	4	15	1	Very poor
Nevada	12	8	3	1	0	Poor
New Hampshire	42	24	9	9	0	Poor
New Jersey	172	60	49	63	0	Good
New Mexico	15	7	6	2	0	Very poor
New York	a 192	135	15	41	1	*
North Carolina	57	18	21	18	0	Poor
North Dakota	4	2	1	1	0	Poor
Northern Mariana Islands	1	0	1	0	0
Ohio	79	25	23	31	0	Very poor
Oklahoma	7	4	1	2	0	Very poor
Oregon	29	7	6	16	0	Fair
Pennsylvania	73	35	18	20	0	Excellent
Puerto Rico	16	3	4	9	0
Rhode Island	121	14	23	84	0	Poor
South Carolina	45	32	8	5	0	Good
South Dakota	8	6	2	0	0	Other b
Tennessee	102	51	19	32	0	Poor
Texas	21	18	1	2	0	Poor
Utah	48	17	8	16	7	*
Vermont	30	16	5	9	0	Poor
Virginia	22	8	2	12	0	*
Washington	28	11	8	9	0	Fair
West Virginia	11	7	4	0	0	Other b
Wisconsin	53	34	8	11	0	Excellent
Wyoming	1	1	0	0	0
Total	3,036	1,234	686	1,103	13

a California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Nebraska did not respond to surveys. For these states, the data in table IV.1 are based on EPA’s survey responses alone and, for that reason, may be less reliable than for states having responses from both EPA and states. New York provided responses to only a few questions in our survey.

b “Other” indicates that the respondent was uncertain about the state’s financial capability.

* State officials in Idaho, New York, Missouri, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming declined to participate in [the] telephone survey.