“The parties have agreed that the health department will have trained staff on site to serve as the eyes and the ears of the community,” Clark County Health Commissioner Charles Patterson.
He said the meetings helped set the ground rules for the process of implementing the much-delayed cleanup of the Tremont City Barrel Fill site. The meetings involved “local government officials, long-time local activists for water safety and representatives of EPA Region 5 with the contractors who will conduct work on the project,” according to Patterson.
In reporting on the sessions to fellow Springfield City Commission members, Commissioner David Estrop added the Ohio EPA also participated as well as German Township trustees.
The estimated $27.7 million of expenses related to the cleanup will be covered by the contractors employed by the Responsible Environmental Solutions Alliance (RESA II), composed of the companies that participated in dumping the chemicals in the barrel landfill. These include Chemical Waste Management Inc., Franklin International Inc., International Paper Co., Procter & Gamble Co., PPG Industries Inc., Strebor Inc. and Worthington Cylinder Corporation. All were either owners, operators or users of the disposal site.
Unusual activity
The meetings were unusual, said Patterson, who believes this is only the second time the EPA has engaged so directly with local stakeholders.
“We believe they are doing this because the community has been so actively involved in the process,” Patterson said.
He noted a meeting a few years ago at Northwestern High School that was attended by about 500 people.
“City and county officials were there, township representatives, the citizens action group People for Safe Water, along with concerned residents of the township,” Patterson said. “Everybody there in unison said no to the proposal they offered at that time. Because there was so much opposition to their proposed remedy, they revised the proposal to the offer that is now being implemented.”
Estrop characterized the first recent session as tough, but said by the end of the second day trust had been restored by the EPA and its commitment to improved communication.
“A lack of communication has been a continuing problem. Now we seem to have jumped that hurdle,” he said.
‘Actually addressing the problem’
Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck noted trust is a major consideration because over the decades since the barrel fill was declared a Superfund site, so many of the players have changed.
“That’s why there has been mistrust,” he said. “Now we are the furthest we’ve every been to actually addressing the problem.”
Patterson characterized the meetings as making good progress in establishing more trust.
“Trust is built, and we are willing to work with all parties. We are taking a similar approach to the one the country once took with the Russians - trust but verify,” he said.
Patterson said the health district needs to be involved to reassure the community.
The plan details
The 8.5-acre industrial landfill operated from 1976 to 1979 and contains an estimated 51,500 drums with 300,000 gallons of industrial waste.
Over the next few years, the site will be excavated and nearly 1,000 drums containing extremely hazardous substances will be removed and disposed of elsewhere. The rest of the hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste and contaminated soil will then be relocated to a newly constructed, double-lined cell on the same site. Engineering of the new container is designed to provide an additional safety net to prevent contamination.
The area will be topped with a hazardous landfill cap. The EPA will continue to monitor the site and the critically important Buried Valley Aquifer to ensure the safety of the water source for area residents.
No changes were reported on the timeline projected for the work. Preliminary planning is underway now, with technical experts in the field meeting on Jan. 21 to start defining exact procedures and processes.
“It will probably still be 2025 before shovels hit the ground, but this has to be carefully designed and implemented,” Estrop said. “There is a potential threat during the clean up to damage the very aquifer we want to preserve.”
He also noted the city has benefitted from having an attorney with specialization on environmental law for consultation.
Next steps
Heck said ground testing will give updated information on changes in status and will impact the next steps as environmental technicians determine how to segregate the contents to be removed from the site from those that will remain and be placed in the new state-of-the-art container.
Township trustees expressed concerns during the recent meetings about transportation of the hazardous material over local roads and questioned what kind of preparation or special training might be needed by local fire and safety providers. City Commissioner Kevin O’Neill echoed their thoughts during Estrop’s city commission presentation.
EPA officials offered reassurance that all of those issues will be included in the overall design phase.
Estrop also cautioned the timeline is really a best guess based on current knowledge.
“It really depends on what they find and in what condition they find it when excavation begins,” said Estrop.
Mayor Warren Copeland predicted it will be 5 to 10 years before all the work is completed.
According to Patterson, after the conclusion of the two-day sessions, “All in attendance intend on a thorough, safe and healthy cleanup as required by the federal court’s consent order. My hope is that everything goes exactly the way it should and after 2027 we will have a cleanup completed that assures our water supply will not be at risk for hundreds of years.”
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