By the numbers
1.5 million: Gallons of hazardous waste stored in barrels buried at the Tremont City Barrel Fill.
$28 million: Cost of cleanup plan selected by U.S. EPA, which includes digging up barrels, extracting the liquid waste and reburying the solid waste on site in a lined landfill.
$56 million: Cost of cleanup plan preferred by local leaders and activists, which would remove all waste.
Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has covered the debate over cleaning up the hazardous waste at Tremont City Barrel Fill for more than a decade, including stories digging into environmental testing and the cleanup costs.
The U.S. EPA has made what some called “significant differences” to its controversial plan to clean up the Tremont City Barrel Fill that contains about 1.5 million gallons of industrial waste not far from the city’s local drinking water source.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at Northwestern High School, 5780 Troy Road, to discuss changes that will reduce the cost of the clean-up plan by about $2 million. The meeting is part of the agency’s public outreach campaign, said Clark County Health Commissioner Charles Patterson.
“They’ll come in and tell the public what changes they’ve made from the initial record of decision,” Patterson said.
All local agencies want the barrels removed from the 8.5-acre site, which comes with a $56 million price tag. But the U.S. EPA has ruled in favor of a different cleanup plan that will cost about $26 million: Dig up all of the barrels, take out the ones with liquid waste, add a double liner and put the barrels filled with solid waste back in place.
As part of the changes, the U.S. EPA will remove a planned slurry wall and leak collection system, instead adding a second liner with a leak detection system, according to the U.S. EPA. Both options will protect human health and the environment, the EPA wrote in an e-mail to the Springfield News-Sun.
With the changes, the cost of the project will be reduced by about $2 million. However, officials and residents have expressed concerns about the 50- to 60-year shelf life of the proposed liners.
“It’s still not what we want,” Patterson said. “What the community is asking for is if you’re going to dig this hazardous waste up, don’t put the hazardous waste back in the ground.”
People for Safe Water, a local group lobbying for the barrels to be removed completely from the site, spent last week at the Clark County Fair speaking with residents about the upcoming meeting.
The meeting is a great chance for Clark County residents to show their interest in cleaning up the site the right way, Welker said.
“We need people to know that our local officials can’t do it without the support of people showing up and speaking out and saying ‘No, no, no,’ to reburying hazardous waste at that site,” Welker said.
State officials, including Gov. John Kasich, have yet to support a plan for the U.S. EPA to place the site on the National Priorities List, which would allow for federal and state money to be used for a cleanup. Proposals and listings occur about every six months. If the site is placed on the list, the EPA said it will begin negotiations to require the potentially responsible parties to start the cleanup.
In April, a group of 29 local officials signed a letter urging Kasich to continue to support the plan to remove all hazardous waste from the barrel fill. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig Butler responded on Kasich’s behalf in an April 23 letter to the Springfield City Commission.
The letter said the Ohio EPA will “support a final remedy that is first and foremost protective of human health and the environment, but also the most cost effective.”
Last month, Patterson and locally elected state officials, including state Reps. Kyle Koehler and Bob Hackett and state Sen. Chris Widener, met with Butler to discuss the barrel fill. The Ohio EPA leaders told the group they’re still collecting information on the barrel fill and want to hear more feedback from the community.
“They’re waiting to get more questions answered from the U.S. EPA and hear from the public,” Patterson said.
The state agency didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Recent testing at the Tremont City Barrel Fill showed hazardous chemicals remain at levels below EPA standards, changing little since the last round of sampling in 2006. While an Ohio EPA memo written earlier this year showed state officials are “ready to conclude” the cheaper alternative will be safe, local leaders and activists say the results were collected after less than a decade and the larger issue remains — they want the industrial waste removed.
Since the U.S. EPA selected the cheaper cleanup plan in 2011, local leaders have expressed their displeasure to officials at every level of government, including in letters to President Barack Obama and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner.
The Aug. 27 meeting is important because it provides residents an opportunity to speak to both the U.S. EPA and the Ohio EPA about the issue, Patterson said. The community is getting closer to the point when Kasich and Butler will make a decision, he said.
“It’s been a long, hard fight,” said Patterson, who has served as health commissioner for 15 years. “Many years have gone into the barrel fill. We want the best outcome we can get for the public.”
About the Author
