Citizens Information Committee
                           Minutes of Public Meeting 
                            Thursday, April 11, 1996
                              Bloomington, Indiana

Attendees

Deb Backhus, IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Mike Baker, COPA
Evelyn Brophy, City of Bloomington Utilities
Dan Hopkins, U.S. EPA Remedial Project Manager
Iris Kiesling, Bloomington City Council
John Langley, City of Bloomington PCB Coordinator
Michael List, CIC Chair
Dave Novak,  U.S. EPA Community Involvement Coordinator
Flynn Picardal, IU School Public and Environmental Affairs
Resa Ramsey, Indiana Dept. of Environmental Management

Observers

David Porter, Citizen
Mitch Rice, COPA

Approval of Minutes

Michael List presided over the meeting, which began at 7:25 pm.  The 
minutes were approved without revision.

Joint Parties Schedule for Bloomington Consent Decree Sites

The Schedule was handed out, and perused by those attending.

Hopkins: The EPA had done three quarters (3/4) of the ground water 
sampling for residential wells, springs and streams.

The EPA has gone through a number of meetings, and they are on 
schedule, even though it is "a real killer" to meet.

Most of the work has been done on Lemon Lane and Neal's Landfill as 
scheduled.

Historical Information
Dr. Powell of Earthtech has put together summary of past info about 
Winston Thomas

Review of Land uses for Winston Thomas and Lemon Lane
- Commercial uses are proposed

Langley:
We turned loose the planners and asked them to develop a most likely 
use scenario for both sites.  Lemon lane's most likely use will be 
commercial/business park, if it is to conform to the current growth 
policies plan, which discourages a high density traffic attraction at 
that intersection.  (It was pointed out that the land just across SR 37 
is industrial at present.)

Winston-Thomas would likely be a commercial zone, like a large shopping 
center, with anchor stores, or 15 to 18 business park type parcels.
These scenarios are not set in stone, any such new zoning proposals 
must go through administrative and zoning reviews, and neither has a 
guaranteed outcome.  This scenario does make some sense, considering the 
city is growing south, and that growth is restricted in the southeast, 
that this would be a good location for a commercial site.

Baker: The point is that by knowing the most likely use of the area will 
help determine to what level the area needs to be cleaned, is that 
correct?

Langley: Present zoning is institutional, with an eye toward creating 
green space in this area (WT). It is one of the last nodes in the green 
space planning, but would we want green space there? I think I would 
want to push it a little further west.

Baker:
If we determine a likely use, how does this fit in with the scenario 
of what's going to happen and when?

Hopkins: Well, if you know to what use the site will be used for, it 
helps you decide how and to what degree the site will be cleaned.  

List: It seems that WT is so finite that you could just take everything.

Hopkins: Down to what level?

List:  Down to nothing

Hopkins:  That would be a lot of material.  We need to know the 
parameters.

Langley: Fish & Wildlife mentioned in a tech meeting that if a 
body of water were involved that they would want to see Ç part 
per billion cleanup level. I don't know if this is possible.
How far down is bedrock?  (Twelve to twenty (12-20) feet.)

List: It just does not seem that much material.

Baker:  It would seem easier for Westinghouse to thoroughly clean this 
up, than to leave some, and have to worry about future liability. It 
would seem that with as easy a site as WT is (compared to Lemon Lane) 
to remediate, that the cleanup standard there will set the tone for 
the work on Lemon Lane.  It is a concern that we are already considering 
what is acceptable to leave behind, even though the site has not been 
fully characterized.

Hopkins:  What  technologies are being considered for this site, 
considering future use? Westinghouse has looked at high temperature 
thermal desorption, BCD, and soil washing with a solvent. Their 
conclusion was that these options would be in essence  experimental 
technologies They felt the best two alternatives will be consolidation 
on site, or sending to a TSCA landfill.  Would consolidation on site be 
acceptable considering the future use scenarios?

Langley:  The city is not happy with the idea of consolidation on site, 
but does not rule out the possibility if Westinghouse will assume 
responsibility for site maintenance in perpetuity.

Porter:  Are you considering (with the consolidation scenario) the 
possibility of a bonding agent to insure maintenance of the site, a 
separate entity funded by Westinghouse?

Baker:  Assuming one of the mentioned land uses, what cleanup level 
would be acceptable? (25ppm for commercial)

Hopkins: It is a problem, there are so many factors, is the land covered, 
is there leaching to the nearby creek, etc.  The problem is even more 
pronounced at Lemon Lane.

Baker:
Has the time frame changed at WT, considering the recent releases?

Hopkins:  We are seriously looking at that. Westinghouse is interested 
in possibly pushing up the schedule on this site, by a half a year to 
the first quarter of 1997 instead of the last quarter.  They want to 
save time, by eliminating remediations that are not applicable up front.

Baker: Considering the releases to wildlife, wouldn't it be smart to 
move ahead quickly and solve the problems with the constant releases 
to wildlife from the lagoon? (Hopkins: What constant releases? Porter:  
Wildlife was found to have 19 to 78 times the allowed levels of PCBS 
for consumption of poultry.  Biological release.)  I realize this may 
not yet be a section 106 emergency cleanup level, but we are far 
past "We'll work it into our schedule". At what point would you 
consider it an emergency, and what would that change in your
approach to the cleanup (schedule).?

Hopkins: We do have procedures for emergency cleanup, but we are also 
bound by the Consent Decree.  We can basically do what we can pay for. 

List: As to this letter from William Sanjour, (handed out before the 
meeting officially opened. Sanjour is a policy analyst for the EPA, 
and has been investigating the lack of an RIFS in the Bloomington 
Superfund sites), I do not know quite how to take this.  He recommends
a review of the legality of the Consent Decree if the functional 
equivalence has not been performed.

Baker:  Are there any meetings scheduled between his office and yours? 

Hopkins:  Not that I know of. I think the contact should come from the 
ombudsman's office.  Bob Martin, or Sanjour should contact Region V 
and have a dialog.  I read the letter, and I think I understand it 
and its recommendation.

List:  So should there be a legal review of whether the Consent Decree 
is valid, and should it be determined that the consent decree is invalid, 
is that a good thing or a bad thing? It seems to me it is a good thing, 
because the Consent Decree has prevented the EPA from simply saying:
"Clean it up and pay for it." 

Hopkins: That is a valid criticism. It should also be recognized that 
the Federal Court had a three pronged test to determine if this was a 
valid contract.  This happened in the mid-80's, I wasn't there, Bill 
Sanjour wasn't there, and I see this memo as a revisionist approach 
as to what happened ten years ago.  You are questioning what the Federal 
judge did ten years ago.  He is using what the Indiana Legislature 
did after the Decree was signed. How can you fault a judge
for not taking into account what is going to happen ten years 
in the future?

List: We're not trying to fault the judge, but ascertain whether 
we might legitimately ask him to review that.

Baker:  It may have been a flaw in his (Sanjour's) argument that 
he used the Indiana Legislature's actions to show public opposition, 
rather than the petitions, lawsuits, etc, filed by the public.

Hopkins:  I was reading material from that time, newspaper articles, 
that were favorable to the Consent Decree.

Porter: Where did you read that, who from the public supported that.

Rice: Kissel from SPEA.  I just had that article out.

Porter: Just because some spin doctor says its ok, don't read that as 
agreement on the part of the public. Many people were really upset 
at the agreement (including the president of the county commissioners)

Hopkins: All right, you know better than I about this, I just had 
the impression the concern has been growing.

Baker:  We purchased 52 hours of video tape of all those meetings, and 
in almost all of them, the public was concerned. I know there is some 
discussion of this issue within EPA , and with the legal issues, 
Justice may also become involved.

List: But this is not just going to wither on the vine?

Hopkins:  Well I see this a "so what".  If the parties are going to 
move ahead ...

List: No, no, no. I think there is a big point. You have had to 
work within this nice cozy agreement. If the Consent Decree goes 
away, you are left with all this stuff that needs to be cleaned up, 
and you can tell Westinghouse to clean it up and pay for it.  This 
way we do not have to talk about cleaning up hot spots, (which I find 
horrifying), you can tell them to clean it all up.

Hopkins:  We would be adopting the same approach, that is the way we 
do business now. You have to look at the contempory setting, now, that 
is what we would tell them to do.

List: If the Consent Decree was not in force, you would be doing the 
same thing now?

Hopkins: Not the same process, we would be using the same technical 
tools and the same policy tools.

List: You would be saying drill just 25 holes in Lemon Lane and not 
pay attention to what else is out there?

Hopkins: I'm not saying that.  It is just typical to go digging in 
municipal landfills.

Porter: It is not typical that there are 440 tons of Inerteen in a 
municipal landfill sitting on karst.

Hopkins: We don't exactly know that (the amount of Inerteen)

Porter: Well let's use it until we have a better one.

Hopkins: Yeah but we don't know where it is either.

Porter: Don't you guys do math?  You're scrambling around at WT, 
over 88,000 gallons at 2ppb. You've got Quarry Springs releasing 
14,000 gallons a day during low flow.  This water was measured 
at 15ppb, at low flow, and 400ppb (1500ppb in the sediment). So this 
is source of 200 times as much material that pumps out 100,000 gallons 
every seven days. Within a month that hole could be putting out a 
gallon of PCBs.  And you're scrambling around worrying about one 
ten thousandth of a gallon at Wiston Thomas. Where are your priorities?

Hopkins: I understand what you are saying. We've taken Lemon Lane 
as far as we can take it, and they are examining alternatives for 
it too. Part of it is hot spots, but I think a central part of it
is going to be control of water.  Whether we excavate the entire 
landfill or not, that stream is going to be contaminated for a long 
time.  The extent to which we can control the water is
another issue to be examined. Can you reduce the water getting into 
the system, can you extend the cap, can you reduce the amount of 
surface water that gets into the stream?  If you can not
stop water from getting into the stream, can you mitigate the peaks?  
If you don't have spikes coming through the stream, what kind of 
treatment system can you have? This has got to be a component of 
the remediation.

Porter:  Why are you guys so concerned with WT, when so much is 
leaking out of the springs?

Hopkins: Just because we are focusing on WT does not mean we are 
letting go of Lemon Lane.

Porter: Who is protecting the citizenry?

Hopkins:  That is our purpose, protecting the citizenry. It's just 
that there are things you can do, and there are some things you 
can do later. Lemon Lane is something we can do later.
There will be no control of that stream until there is a 
treatment plant there.
There is a process set out to do this work, and we are going 
to follow it. There is the problem of high flow times, when 
10,000 gallons/hour move through the Swallow Hole, no treatment 
plant can handle that.

Rice:  The background levels of PCBs are rising with each rain, 
you can not eat the fish in our creeks and streams, we should have 
been treating this water long ago.

Winston Thomas - Current Situation

Langley: (Referring to a diagram supplied by Mr. Hopkins)
Two sets of digesters are at WT, a north and south pair.  Digesters 
are the end of the sewage treatment process, and are filled with 
solids suspended in water, where biological destruction takes place.
During a walk through with the EPA risk assessment person, a crack  
was noticed in one of the north pair of tanks.  (The tanks are about 
25 feet above grade, and 25 feet below grade. The walls are made of 
aggregate concrete and are about one foot thick). This was the first 
sighting of this crack, and caused some alarm.   By comparing the 
freeboard in July of 1994 and the present, it was determined that 
significant leakage had occurred, approximately 88,000 gallons.  
Previously Westinghouse had paid to remove and decontaminate the 
lids of three of the digesters. The southeast digester lid is still 
in place.
There is an underground hall that runs 94 feet long by 10 feet wide 
to the second set of digesters, and this was inundated with about 
nine inches of water.  By comparing the change in freeboard since 1994 
and the amount of water in the hallway, it was determined that most
of the water had stayed in the hallway.  There are floor drains in 
the hallway, but they appear to be clogged.  

Hopkins:
(Pictures of the digesters and the crack were passed around.) There 
has not been much leakage from the crack.  It was leaking valves, not 
the crack that caused the major release.  The water pumped from the 
hallway tested out at 2.1 and 2.2 ppb, well below the  limits of 
10 ppb set by the city for release into the environment.  This water 
was discharged as it was well below action limits. Activity in the 
hallway was minimized so as to not disturb the sediments which no 
doubt contain higher concentrations.  The digester is now being pumped 
out (from the top), and the water is in the process of being 
cleaned by filtration through charcoal filters preceded by a 
5 micron prefilter.  This process is proceeding, albeit slowly, 
so as not to foul the filtration system.   Mr. Hopkins compared 
the digester to a Melita filter, only with PCBs instead of 
coffee grounds.  The idea of  pumping is to relieve pressure on 
the tank with the crack. When the water level is reduced, it is 
to be maintained at a low level.  Then the sludge can be moved 
from one tank to another so that it is below the level where pipes 
and valves that have been exposed to the freeze/thaw cycle can be 
plugged to prevent leakage.  This allows the EPA a level of 
confidence that no leakage will occur before a remediation of 
the site has begun.

Rice:  What analysis tools are being used to determine that this 
crack is not going to become a significant structural problem?  
Remember that the last two releases occurred even though the EPA and 
City thought that the site was secure.  Was a structural engineer 
consulted?

Hopkins: We have realized, to the point of embarrassment, that there 
needs to be more vigilance in monitoring this site.  It is for this 
reason that we are lowering the water levels in the digesters, and 
plugging the pipes and valves.

Porter:  What are the total release amounts (in gallons) we are talking 
about here?

A calculator is used to determine that there is 238,600 gallons of 
sludge at a concentration of 379 ppm in the northwest digester.  The 
NE digester has a concentration of 69 ppm with a similar amount.

Porter:  Why is there such a difference in concentration between the 
two tanks?

Hopkins: It was just the way it was shut down.  I don't think this 
is the way a plant should be shut  down.

Langley: I agree with you

Hopkins:  There are about a million gallons of sludge in all the 
digesters. 

Porter:   But we are talking about only a few cubic feet of Inerteen 
total, compared to 440 tons of Inerteen at Lemon Lane.  It is time 
you guys started talking about absolute pounds of PCBs you are 
dealing with.  I am not impressed by millions of cubic feet of 
dirt, just to clean up a few pounds of PCBs, when you total release 
may be in the thousands of tons.

Hopkins: Our approach will continue to be not to concentrate on the 
total number of pounds, but on how much is left when we are done 
with cleanup, whatever is best to protect human health and the 
environment.  And I am not comfortable with the 440 ton number, I 
think it may be closer to 40 tons, and we are not even sure of that.  
We have soft numbers here. Considering cost/benefit, we need to look 
at remediating releases to the environment from the Illinois Central 
Spring.  If we can contain them here we will have something close to 
a solution, as there seems to be little release to the other springs 
in the area.

Porter:  But this is not the case right now, and the releases are 
still occurring.

Hopkins: At Lemon Lane we are looking at a solution that protects 
human health and the environment.

Status of Landfill Permits at Bottom Road

Ramsey:  There has been no review of the permits.  They are in my 
office. I will notify the CIC if such a review is initiated.

EarthTech

List: Sona no longer comes to the meetings, so we need to have someone 
to transcribe and type the minutes.  Mike, can COPA handle this?

Baker:  We can have an official transcriber do the work.

Hopkins:  I don't think we need full transcription, like a court 
document.  It become too much of a job to do the work, and to read 
the resulting minutes.  Let's try some condensation so that just the 
important points are covered.

Baker: We would be happy to handle this.

List:  The way I generate the agenda is to go through the minutes, 
and add any promises that have been made at the previous meeting, 
so that nothing is left out.

Novak:  The audio and video tapes can be saved, and if there are 
any questions as to what has happened, these can be reviewed.

Baker: We can do this, and notify the HT of meeting dates.  Should we 
continue the practice of sending out draft minutes to members prior to 
posting them on the BBS, or making them official?

Novak: Yes, this is how it has been done in the past, and is a good idea.

Next Meeting is June 6, 1996.

Meeting adjourned at 9:30 pm


Submitted by Mitch Rice, COPA