Condemn Rowe Plan
A team from the Environmental Protection Agency came to Sag Harbor on Monday to unveil the Government's clean-up plan for the Rowe Industries Superfund site and found itself under a blistering attack from residents.
The E.P.A. officials agreed with a request by Scott Strough, chairman of the Southampton Town Trustees, to reconvene a task force of local officials that last met to discuss the plan in the early 1990s, but they offered no promises the clean-up effort, slated to begin next month, would be widened.
Mr. Strough issued his call after listening to Paul Stewart of Advanced Cleanup Technologies of Farmingdale, who was hired by residents to monitor the effort, roundly criticize the E.P.A. Mr. Stewart accused the agency of producing a shoddy plan that would not adequately clean the site and surrounding neighborhood.
Wary Residents
"Where is the contamination?" Mr. Stewart asked, claiming the extent of the polluted soil and groundwater had never been properly mapped. "We can't design a plan that doesn't know."
"Mr. Stewart blew me away tonight," said Mr. Strough. As a public official, he said, he would not be able to "sign off" on any proposed plan "when all of a sudden out of left field this much information comes in and puts doubt in my mind."
Mr. Strough told the E.P.A. "the trust is gone," which he blamed on the agency's unwillingness to keep the community fully informed of its plans. "This is a form meeting," he said. "I know this game. You need to commit to us that you'll communicate."
Forbes Joins Criticism
The sentiment was echoed by Linda DiStefano. "We don't trust you," she told the E.P.A. "We don't believe you are looking out for our best interests. That's the truth."
And Congressman Michael P. Forbes, who had called a community meeting in June to address progress at the site and was represented by his chief of staff, Diana Weir, on Monday, joined the fray.
"I had hoped the E.P.A. would fulfill its promise to work with residents of Sag Harbor and include their input in a final plan," he said in a release. "Now the E.P.A. is pushing through a plan that does not sufficiently address the legitimate concerns of the residents."
"Do you know what the issue is?" asked John DiStefano of Carroll Street. "The issue is, you people have been doing nothing for 12 years. The issues are when my neighbors die of cancer. I've got grandchildren growing up."
Mr. DiStefano, who is Linda Di Stefano's father-in-law, heads Carroll Street Remediation Inc., a neighborhood group. It has filed a $200 million lawsuit against the Nabisco Corporation, which used to own the property and has agreed to fund the cleanup.
The Rowe factory manufactured electric motors from the 1950s to the 1970s. Toxic degreasers and other solvents used in the manufacturing process were dumped down drains, stored in barrels, and possibly buried at the site.
Nabisco's Plan
In 1983, contamination of the groundwater surrounding the plant was discovered. Homes above a toxic plume moving northwest from the property were connected to public water in 1985, but the property was put on the Federal Superfund site in 1987.
As part of its agreement to clean the site, Nabisco has hired a consulting firm, Leggette, Brashears & Graham of Connecticut, to devise a plan. Robert Lamonica of that firm summarized its proposal at Monday's meeting.
The plan is essentially the same one the E.P.A. informally aired in June. Because ongoing studies of the site revealed that the level of contamination was higher than suspected earlier, affecting almost 1,700 cubic yards of soil as compared to 230 yards, a plan to truck the soil off-site has been curtailed.
The original plan called for excavation to a depth of 20 feet. "It would be very noisy, very disruptive," said Mr. Lamonica. "They were going to have a huge crater" at the site.
Excavation
Instead, the firm is recommending the removal of about 200 yards of soil, located in a former drum storage area and on neighboring property, to a depth of four feet. The soil would be cleaned on-site before being trucked away to a hazardous-materials landfill near Niagara Falls, Mr. Lamonica said.
During the excavation, the area would be monitored to insure airborne toxins did not spread to neighboring homes, he said.
The digging would be followed by the installation of up to 15 soil-vapor extraction wells and an "air sparging" system. An air sparger works by injecting air into the groundwater, forcing the contaminants to "volatilize." They are then drawn through the vapor-extraction system to a carbon filter.
Ground Zero? Never
Although the system could be in place for 10 years or longer and pump more than one million gallons of water a day that would be piped to Sag Harbor Cove, Mr. Lamonica conceded the cleanup would probably never be complete.
"I don't think we can get to zero parts per billion," he said. "What we hope to get is drinking-water standards, and I'm not sure this is feasible."
Mr. Lamonica said the system would "get the biggest bang for its buck" in its first year of operation. He estimated it could remove up to 48 percent of the contaminants in the first year.
The level would increase to approximately 99 percent after nine years and then hover in that range, he said.
He said the pumping was likely to draw down the level of Lily Pond and other nearby ponds by about five inches. Monitoring of the water levels conducted in conjunction with the Nature Conservancy showed their levels change by four feet or more in any given year, he added. In dry years, the system can be slowed or shut down to limit the impact on the ecosystem.
Mr. Lamonica also said studies done by both his firm and the Cornell Cooperative Extension showed that the water pumped into Sag Harbor Cove would decrease its salinity "by less than 1 percent" and not cause any harm.
"We understand what's wrong with the plan and what can be done to make it right. It's not rocket science," countered Mr. Stewart. "Whether you pump a million gallons a day or 10,000 gallons a day, it's not going to be cleaned up."
More Samples
As Mr. Stewart borrowed Mr. Lamonica's graphs and charts and began fielding questions from the floor, Cecilia Echols, an E.P.A. community affairs officer, asked that questions be directed toward Pamela Tames, the E.P.A.'s project manager, or Joel Singerman, head of the agency's central New York remediation department.
Ms. Echols was ignored. "Why are you people not working with [Mr. Stewart]?" asked one woman. "He seems to know a lot."
"He's our savior," said Mr. DiStefano. "We look to you people. You're not the A team."
Mr. Stewart faulted LB&G for what he said was lax testing of the site and said it would be wise to do far more test borings, in a tighter pattern and at multiple depths, to better determine the extent of the contamination.
Where Does It End?
"It's just a matter of collecting samples," he said. "Sand is the easiest thing to drill through."
"I don't think the E.P.A. knows where the bottom of the solvents is," continued Mr. Stewart. The chemicals sink and "at a certain level it will form a layer like oil. There could be a very large blob down there that no one knows about."
He said LB&G had also overlooked potential high concentrations of contaminants by not properly testing around a broken sewer pipe leading to a dry well, or by testing directly under the building, where the chemicals were dumped in a "dirt-lined trench."
"I don't feel too comfortable with the concept of 'it might have leaked,' " Mr. Stewart said. Solvents that could have flowed from the pipe represent a "mass load that needs to be pulled out," he added.
Toxic Gases
But Mr. Singerman said Mr. Stewart's concerns about solvents under the building were unfounded because there was no evidence the contamination was spreading.
"Just because it is sitting under the building, there is no need to address that contamination," he said.
Mr. Stewart also said the cleanup effort should be widely extended to include the placement of soil-vapor extraction wells and air spargers in all areas of the plume.
The possibility that toxic gases are seeping into the basements of private homes located over the plume should also be addressed, by venting systems similar to those used to remove radon, he said.
"Ignorance"?
"That's kind of overkill," responded Ms. Tames, but she added that the E.P.A.'s plan was still in the draft stage and could be revised.
"There seems to be absolute blissful ignorance among this group," said David Heller, the attorney for the Carroll Street group. "It appears the E.P.A. is prepared to act on something it is not prepared to give us."
He called on the agency to revise its plan so "an informed decision" could be made. "I call that due diligence," he said.