READ MORE: Tremont City barrel fill: What’s really going on?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will likely move forward with a consent decree that will put a clean-up plan in motion, state Rep. Kyle Koehler said.
A consent decree is a legal agreement entered into by the federal government and people or businesses responsible for the pollution. It’s the only type of settlement the EPA can use for the final cleanup phase and can be used to recover costs, according to the EPA’s website.
Earlier this summer, the city of Springfield passed a resolution urging Gov. John Kasich to agree to place the Tremont City Barrel Fill on the Superfund list to ensure federal action. Being included on the priority list of contaminated sites would make it eligible for a long-term clean-up paid for by the federal Superfund program.
Several local government entities — including Springfield, Clark County and German Twp. — recently backed a $24 million clean-up plan at the closed dump that has industrial waste stored in buried barrels.
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If the site is listed on the priorities list, Koehler said it could be several years before it’s cleaned up. With the consent decree approach, he said the clean up might start within a year.
The site will still be cleaned up, Clark County Health Commissioner Charles Patterson said, but likely with less rigid requirements.
“We’ll have to pay closer attention to the situation moving forward,” he said.
A federal court will have jurisdiction over the consent decree, Patterson said, meaning it can enforce certain requirements not met during the process.
“This is a step to getting those chemicals out of the ground,” he said. “The sooner we get the liquids out of the ground, the safer we’re going to be.”
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Local leaders and activists were told earlier this year to accept a modified, reduced cleanup of the hazardous waste dump they’ve long feared could seep into Springfield’s drinking water supply or risk nothing happening for years. Any leakage at the site could pose a risk to public health decades from now, officials have said.
The health district hopes to hear more from the Ohio EPA in response to letters sent earlier this year, Patterson said.
The barrel fill, located at 3108 Snyder Domer Road about 3 miles northwest of Springfield, was used between 1976 and 1978 and is an 8.5-acre section of a closed landfill.
If left in its current state, the site could be a risk to public health decades from now because the barrels could deteriorate and some of the chemicals leach into the area’s aquifer, affecting the water of up to 80,000 people, officials have said.
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The waste included glues, resins, paint sludge, paint scraps, soap, shampoo, detergent, asbestos, oils and other industrial compounds. Food industry sources also disposed of items such as margarine and corn syrup.
Contaminants include elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, such as xylenes, ethylbenzene, toluene and methylene chloride. Metals such as chromium and arsenic were also detected in the liquid and solid waste.
Community members and local leaders have pushed the U.S. EPA for years to remove all of the hazardous waste. The U.S. EPA was expected to move forward with a $56 million plan to do that.
However in 2011 the federal agency decided to pursue a $28 million plan that calls for barrels containing liquids to be removed and ones with solid waste to be dug up and then reburied on-site in a lined landfill.
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Since then, a modified version of that cheaper plan was introduced and estimated to cost about $24 million. It also includes a double liner, leak detection system and possibly removing some of the barrels that include the worst chemicals.
Koehler supports the decision by the Ohio EPA to not support a Superfund listing because he wants remediation to begin as soon as possible.
“I want to see something happening now,” he said. “I want to start the design stage.”
A consent decree will be a legally binding document, Koehler said.
“They’re basically signing they’re name on a line saying they’re going to take care of it,” he said.
Local activist group People for Safe Water will now become the community’s watchdogs when it come to cleaning up the site, member Larry Ricketts said. The U.S. EPA and the responsible parties will soon begin negotiations, he said.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Ricketts said. “We’re insisting we be involved in that.”
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By the Numbers
1.5 million: Gallons of hazardous waste stored in barrels buried underground at the Tremont City Barrel Fill, an 8.5-acre site in northern Clark County.
$56 million: Cost of clean-up plan Alternative 4a, which would remove all hazardous waste from the site.
$24 million: Cost of clean-up modified plan Alternative 9a, the U.S. EPA's selected plan that includes digging up barrels, extracting the liquid waste and reburying the solid waste on site in a double-lined landfill.
Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has written extensively about the proposed cleanup plan for the Tremont City Barrel Fill since it was first introduced in 2011, including stories digging into the costs and why local activists want all the hazardous waste removed.
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