Memo: To Dan Hopkins
From: Mike Baker (COPA)

US EPA
Region 5
Dan Hopkins
Bloomington Project 

Dear Dan,

As I stated in my letter to you concerning the
planned inadequate sampling of Lemon Lane, dated 14
July 1995, many of us involved in the PCB issue in
Bloomington have become extremely dissatisfied with
the way EPA is proceeding.

I remember my first involvement in 1990 when we
heard Westinghouse had purchased property to build a
hazardous waste landfill for depositing ash from the
proposed PCB incinerator. On the surface this entire
plan seemed worse than the problem. As time went by
and COPA started involving experts in chemistry,
biology, medicine, and other sciences from IU and
other institutions I realized that all the things I
had been told by EPA were wrong. "This is a proven
technology, the ash won't be hazardous, this is the
only remedy we can use, our hands are tied"! 

Of course the proposed incinerator had never been
built. Using municipal waste and sludge for fuel to
burn PCBs had never been tried and even the 7th
Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled for the
second time, over EPA objections, that ash from
municipal waste incinerators is hazardous waste let
alone ash from a PCB incinerator using garbage as a
fuel.

It was then the battle began and COPA rallied the
Bloomington community, the state of Indiana and
local officials to petition for a look at
alternatives to incineration. I remember all the
month meetings where you and Westinghouse led us to
believe there were no options and we presented one
after the other known companies working on PCB
remediation. At the end of this battle, hours of
legal work and petitioning state officials for help
the State of Indiana passed legislation that
virtually forced EPA and the consent decree parties
to move away from incineration  and towards
alternatives like other communities had done.

Even after all the misrepresentations by EPA and
Westinghouse I had faith in the EPA and that they
would do the right thing for the environment and for
the citizens of Bloomington. I like most ordinary
citizens trusted the government and the
Environmental Protection Agency. I should have
learned from my experiences in Vietnam!

What I am more than ever realizing is that instead
of EPA being our allies in working to protect the
environment that we live in, we have become the
enemy and are seen as standing in the way of EPA. A
year ago I remember you stating that "this time EPA
was going to do it right and listen to and involve
the community. What I see is that doing it right for
EPA means fast and cheap for Westinghouse not the
community. EPA is acting as an advocate of
Westinghouses's plans and goals, not the community.
Is it not a fact that the reason Bloomington has
probably the largest total volume of hazardous waste
sites listed on the National Priority List a result
of Westinghouse? Every move, every publication like
the "New Directions" or "Sampling plan for Lemon
Lane", or the "mini-quality assurance plan" or the
public geological meeting are all directed, edited
and proposed by Westinghouse. EPA at the very least
always gives the impression to the community that
they agree with everything being said. Agree that is
until someone brings glaring mistakes to your
attention and then you default to the excuse you did
not carefully read it!

COPA has pulled together a wide range of talent from
the Bloomington community and has tried to use our
federal technical assistant grant for what it was
intended, to review EPA remediation proposals, make
sure they followed EPA guidelines and made sense to
the public. In every case we find EPA totally
disregarding our well documented concerns and
requests. Comment and involvement are great if they
can help make a difference but totally a waste of
precious time when they are disregarded. It seems
that EPA continues to ask for comment even though
they have already made a decision of what they are
going to do. Do we get the EPA decision on Fell &
ABB before your responsiveness summary? 

When we ask questions why you are not going to do a
complete sampling of Lemon Lane, why you are not
going to run the full test for different levels of
PCBs afforded by the immunoassay field kits, or why
you would not consider using the mobile lab
available from Region 5 you act like you were not
aware these options existed. Is it possible that you
have not invited EPA's chief hydrogeologist to
Bloomington because you know he would say no to
leaving PCB in karst. Is it also possible you are
not aware the EPA site program in Cincinnati, Ohio
is desperately looking for excavated PCB
contaminated solid to prove new technologies. Why
can we find out these things? Why do we have to.
Why does Jim Patrick of Westinghouse have to nod
approval before you discuss certain issues? It is no
wonder EPA will not allow someone from the community
to attend consent decree meetings. Is everyone so
concerned that we might have someone attend that
knows more than those that do!







You ask for our comment on the Westinghouse QAPP for
Lemon Lane yet have still not given us a copy.
Instead we get EARTH TECH's  quality assurance plan
of the Westinghouse quality assurance plan, not the
plan itself. This is totally a joke! You are now
finalizing the plan including our comments yet we
have not been able to see the plan. You have been
directly asked by several people several times for
this two volume document and we still have not seen
it. There is no indication that the oversight will
include observing and sampling the actual soil
borings done on site. A Westinghouse stream sampling
event in late May was not tracked by EARTH TECH, the
EPA's oversight contractor. Sampling was done
without notifying the oversight company and the data
was generated and released without opportunity for
TAG review. Each request for a document has to be
made individually and repeatedly, to the point that
our comments are so late in the process that the
poor work )and damage) are already done. Is this
just another oversight by EPA?

We have made presentations to the Citizens
Information Committee concerning quality assurance
standards in testing, the famous basin theory of
Lemon Lane, dioxin reassessment, mobile lab testing
and many objective and reasonable sampling requests.
To date there has been no answer, no change, and no
community involvement as usual. 

How is this different from not performing a RI/FS
for Bloomington sites even though under deposition
EPA's lead council at the time of the consent decree
told us " it was always performed as part of a
required procedure", the ROD was signed a day before
public comment, the Department of Interior Fish &
Wildlife was coerced in the late 80"s to sign away
there rights to damages to wildlife. 

We have repeatedly asked over the last two years
that EPA  fence the Illinois and Quarry Springs area
because of potential exposure concerns to residents
living near these areas and they have still not been
fenced even after over six weeks ago you stated they
would be fenced within two weeks because of the
1,400 ppm samples found. I walked the area yesterday
and still no fence. Can't you see why the community
has lost faith in your ability to take our concerns
seriously?








COPA plans on attending the CIC meetings and to
continue soliciting professional advise from experts
in PCB, chemistry and remediation. We are going to
do this not because we feel you or EPA will really
involve us in the process or actually add some of
our suggestions to the Westinghouse plan. We will do
so to continue to do so because we fear things would
even be worse if we were not present at these
meetings to at least challenge the Westinghouse
plan. 

Bloomington has been shadowed by the PCB cloud for
at least twenty years. The projected volume of
potential contamination has doubled in the last
year. During the last month high levels of PCBs have
migrated from at least one of the sites.
Unfortunately all the Westinghouse equipment failed
to record the high flow conditions as promised. More
oversight! Recordings of PCBs indicate continuing
migration but EPA's new directions seemed to favor
dilution and passive remediation by letting wildlife
carry off PCBs. Now all of a sudden EPA is going to
approve an immediate removal of only 16,000 cubic
yards of contaminated soil, not even listed as a
priority. Why? A developer wants to develop the
land, ABB wants to sell it, ABB puts pressure on
Westinghouse to get it cleaned and Westinghouse
rushes to EPA with a plan that needs immediate
attention.

The developer and ABB are well within their rights
and are doing nothing wrong. What is wrong is that
EPA rushes to help Westinghouse on such a small
issue and the community has to fight tooth and nail
to get documents promised with little EPA
assistance. 

EPA had a demonstration of a trial excavation under
an enclosure as a means of controlling air emissions
of toxins. The test was successful but not a
requirement by law. You stated that volitzation of
PCBs dramatically increased at ABB when temperature
was over 65 degrees. What are you planning at Fell
Iron & Metal, excavation during the summer without
enclosure several blocks away from a school. It is
no wonder some neighbors are planning major civil
disobedience! At least we can be satisfied that
Westinghouse will still get their good deal from
USPCI!

If you really looked at what is going on from the
community's point of view wouldn't you have to
wonder? 









In the past we made sure every comment was sent to
as many people as possible. This resulted in action
favorable to the community, no incinerator. We then
worked hard to foster the "new directions" offensive
and to become a resource for our community and local
and state governments. In my opinion this has been a
mistake. EPA continues to work at making us feel
good while moving along towards fulfilling the needs
of Westinghouse. We don't feel this way because we
inherently dislike you or the EPA but rather because
we know we are seen as in the way. The plan is to be
concerned with the Westinghouse bottom line, worry
about how everyone's hands are ties by the consent
decree and hold the liability issue over our heads
if we object. This is totally unacceptable and we
plan on exercising our rights as citizens and as tax
payers who voted to authorize EPA to work in our and
the environment's interest not the polluters. 

In Bloomington we are dealing with a polluter that
has a national record second to none in the US in
creating major environmental disasters. Is it not
reasonable to expect EPA to want to work with the
community rather than Westinghouse? At least the
State of Indiana is making an attempt to exercise
some authority over this fiasco.

I wouldn't be overly concerned with how upset the
community is becoming, again. If things get really
bad you can always invoke the threat of the
incinerator again as you have done in the past. You
threaten the incinerator and Westinghouse threatens
liability for the city. It is quite an effective tag
team! Do you really think that this proposed test
incinerator could ever be built and permitted. Maybe
you should just tell them to build it.

To top it off while the community is working to
protect our quality of life from what you might do
you are busy worrying about your financial
investments and planning on an early retirement to
your pristine expanse in the State of Washington.
How appropriate is it to have a private interview
with Westinghouse discussing your personal wants and
desires knowing this is going to be published by
Westinghouse in the "New Directions" newsletter. They
still remain the PRP! Pretty inappropriate under the
circumstances.

At the last two CIC meetings when the community
complained about misleading and wrong information in
the "New Directions" newsletter you tried to avoid
responsibility by saying " it's not ours" or "we
didn't approve or review it". That may be true but
you sure signed it and have never corrected one
thing said or penalized Westinghouse for
disregarding your request. Again the state of
Indiana at least had a very strong response. 






So now after all this whining and complaining what
do we want from EPA? We want what is and has been
required by law. We want what you personally have
promised. We want for you to protect the interest of
the community first and Westinghouse the PRP last.
We would again like to request the following
information promised:

1) The Westinghouse QUAPP and plan for Lemon Lane.
2) The data concerning volatilization of PCBs at
ABB.
3) The responsiveness summary for ABB and Fell.
4) The administrative record for any site? (New
operating procedures Feb 94)
5) Soil PCB data used to require fencing Illinois
Central & Quarry Springs)
6) Additional testing data from Winston Thomas.
7) The promised environmental impact statement you
were going to do with Fish &           Wildlife
(over a year ago).
8) Department of Justice final statement concerning
Westinghouse's violation of the consent decree
concerning net worth (paragraph 19).

I could probably go on but will address other
promises in another letter. We would also like to
request that we be given information needed to make
public comment  before comment is due. 

We are going to start a list of promises, dates and
data to support each request. These will be
forwarded to appropriate interested parties.The
Bloomington community will no longer assume you are
looking out for our interests but rather will demand
it through proper and legal channels. It may be hard
to understand or accept but you do work for us, the
taxpayers not the polluter.

















This letter is sent sincerely and in hopes that it
will help explain why the community is having
problems dealing with EPA concerning the problem
Westinghouse gave us. You can refer to a document
from the 1950's which clearly states by Westinghouse
that they would not be discharging any PCBs into the
community. There is and should never be an excuse
that they were only following " normal and accepted
practices at the time", they were not that naive and
you should not be either.


cc Senator Richard Lugar        
    IDEM Commissioner Ms. Kathy Prosser
    Monroe County Commissioners
    Mick Harrison - Green Law
    Environmental Defense Fund
    Senator Dan Coats
    Congressman John Hostetler
    Congressman Lee Hamilton
    City of Bloomington
    National Wildlife Federation
    Dept. Interior Fish & Wildlife (Bloomington)
    State Senator Vi Simpson
    State Representative Make Kruzan
    State Representative Jerry Bales
    John Fernandez
    Kirk White
    Apache
    PATI
    Michael List
    Bloomington CIC