Superfund Site Information
February, 2006
Michael Levin, Ph.D., F.A.A.A.S., a Havertown resident and activist for the conditions at the Havertown Superfund Site is asking all township residents to notify their Commissioners to contact the EPA regarding the Superfund Site and its effect on our quality of life. This is an issue that crosses township boundaries. Dr.Levin has graciously given permission to post his comments here.
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SUPERFUND REMEDY: TIME IS RUNNING OUT
February 13, 2006
The Havertown PCP Superfund Site, Number 542 on the National Priority List of the nation’s worst contaminated sites flunked, in my opinion, its 5-year site review at the January commissioners’ meeting with a surreal scientific presentation in which Haverford’s administrative liaison turned the commissioners over to an improperly represented Environmental Advisory Committee who gave an incoherent delusional off-the-top-of-his-head presentation. The supporting cast included EPA’s Remedial Project Manager, who sat in a back row and when called to present had no notes on EPA’s August 2005 5-year review, no slides, no presentation and was so unprepared that she didn’t take her coat off. When she was addressed by the board, an aerial photograph was silently unrolled into where it was displayed with no boundaries or explanation – form but no substance – by a member of the EAC who apparently also wasn’t prepared.One commissioner asked EPA to confirm whether the agency is going to leave the scene in 2013; answer yes, barring some technicality; could flip the site to the state at any time now; statutory authority is 10 years. Following this transfer, the state DEP will try to run the treatment plan on state funds; it has already said not to expect utility out of the site; it takes years, decades, maybe never. Another commissioner in a feel-good mood commented that he knew someone who lived near the site for 40-years with no ill-effects; he didn’t mention in 1994 he was president of the board who worked the phones in a futile attempt to implore a former worker at the Superfund site back to a Haverford town meeting where he could tell everyone how bad the pollution was and how sick people were who worked at the site. Levels of contaminants could affect young bodies faster than adult ones; the action levels for reducing contaminants are half the levels for hazardous substances The solicitor asked EPA about newly discovered down gradient pollution that the agency doesn’t want to remove because it could recur; he insisted property owners’ should be able to order up testing of their properties; he’s right, the Superfund site has no boundaries; anyone should be able to order testing; Haverford could request a copy as well as have input into what’s tested for. EPA’s vapor intrusion studies have been much criticized.
The Superfund site is unusable by any standards I know of, but EPA says it is now going to place “institutional controls; ” IC’s in their lingo are stipulations for what can be done at the site; the agency has been saying this for nearly 10 years. But, in fact, it is the developer who must make a case that EPA ultimately must approve. Anything is possible, not necessarily probable, but I don’t believe the site’s bailable. By the looks of the lengthy abbreviation list in front of the current 5-year review, EPA is more enslaved to its own pro forma process of looking like it is doing something than with actually cleaning up the site or readying it for reuse. Do you remember the frightened trio when Dorothy finally got to see the Wizard of Oz? Welcome to the Havertown PCP Site where there are nine commissioners unwilling to pull the curtain back.
National Wood Preservers stored and manufactured at least nine (9) wood preservative treatments that keep wood in ground contact from rotting at the site. These included: copper compounds, chlorophenols, fire retardants, chromated copper and zinc compounds, fluoro chrome arsenical, tin oxides, mineral spirits, and oils with dioxins. Hazardous substances, carcinogens all. I believe Haverford must firmly request this site be cleaned up to a gold standard; if the commissioners’ do nothing, there will be a long-term mess at the site.