{"id":5518,"date":"2013-09-02T16:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T20:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=5518"},"modified":"2013-09-01T23:17:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T03:17:56","slug":"aquifer-and-well-contamination-miles-from-waycross-seven-out-superfund-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/aquifer-and-well-contamination-miles-from-waycross-seven-out-superfund-site.html","title":{"rendered":"Aquifer and well contamination miles from Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nAt the
\n
\nWaycross Seven Out Superfund Site meeting<\/a>,
\ncaller Anthony Samsel said
\n
\n(42 minutes and 10 seconds into the video)<\/a>
\nof a site in Massachusetts:<\/p>\n

\nI was the first person to track contamination of the ground to aquifers
\nthat travel several miles; plastics, formaldehyde, from a plastics manufacturing plant,
\nand there was contamination of city wells
\nwith a lot of cancer clusters
\nand a lot of sick, dead, and dying people.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nHe was talking about the Wells G & H Superfund Site in Woburn, MA<\/a>, where,
\naccording to EPA,<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nThe groundwater was contaminated with industrial solvents, called
\nvolatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as trichloroethylene (TCE)
\nand tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Soil on the five properties was
\ncontaminated with VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
\npolychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides. Sediments in the
\nAberjona River were contaminated with PAHs and heavy metals such as
\nchromium, zinc, mercury and arsenic.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThirty years later,
\n
\nthat one is still<\/em> toxic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nIn a
\n
\n29 September 2011 coment<\/a>
\nSamsel said he first raised a red flag about TCE (Trichloroethylene solvent)
\nin Woburn in the 1970s.
\nThe context is the EPA releasing 28 Sepember 2011
\na final health assessment for TCE:<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe final assessment characterizes the chemical as carcinogenic to
\nhumans and as a human noncancer health hazard.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nSamsel said he was researching
\n
\na Georgia-Pacific plant in Arkansas<\/a>
\nand
\nwarned of the Georgia-Pacific plant just south of Waycross.
\nHe noted some of the waste from that plant was sent to the Seven Out site.<\/p>\n

\nAnd where-ever they start, he said,<\/p>\n

\nThese contaminants can travel miles.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThis is a point corroborated both by the Woburn case
\nand by for example
\n
\nthe Fort Gillem case<\/a> in Clayton County,
\nGeorgia.<\/p>\n

\nSomebody wanted to know how long would it take to fix this, for resolution?
\nAnswer from Anthony Samsel:
\nit depends on the specific chemicals.
\nClarification:
\nit depends on the extent of contamination,
\nand first need to establish the plume of contamination.<\/p>\n

\nFrom what Samsel could see from what the Superfund did,
\nthey were concerned with emptying the tanks, not with
\ncontamination of groundwater, wells, or soils.
\nThey only looked at the site, not farther.<\/p>\n

\nAnd that was very very irresponsible of them….<\/p>\n

\nIf contaminated with PAHes, they’re not going to go away.
\nThe property values essentially with these chemicals in the soil
\nare worth nothing.
\nThe city should not even be collecting taxes on them.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nIn other words, there is no cure beyond abandoning the
\naffected areas.
\nAnd even that doesn’t solve the problem, because:<\/p>\n

\nThese materials continue to move.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nJoan McNeal talked about replacing the soil
\nand pumping the water up out of the ground.
\nI don’t think she quite got the gist:
\n
\nonce it’s in the aquifer, there’s really no way to clean it up,
\nand it continues to spread<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nSo what many people in Waycross really need would appear to be
\na way to get out of their now-unsellable property.
\nFunding for buyouts, in other words.
\nWhich only happened for Love Canal
\n
\n<\/a>
\n
\nafter activists held EPA representatives hostage in 1980<\/a>.
\nAnd even then a new administration’s EPA head
\n
\nrefused to continue buyouts<\/a>.
\nYou do remember Love Canal?
\nThe Niagara Falls, New York neighborhood built on a site
\nused to bury toxic waste?
\nThe famous case that helped cause the creation of the Superfund program,
\ntogether with regulations that were supposed to prevent Love Canal from
\never happening again?
\nWell, it’s happened again, this time in Waycross, Georgia.
\nSo it’s time for more buyouts.<\/p>\n

\nLois Gibbs of Love Canal activism fame in 1981 founded the
\n
\nCenter for Health, Environment & Justice<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\n

\nCHEJ mentors and empowers community-based groups to become effective
\nin achieving their goals and build a national environmental health
\nand justice movement where every community is safe to live, work,
\npray and play without toxic hazards.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWaycross activists might want to contact CHEJ.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nAnd maybe we should think about aquifer contamination before
\n
\nplanting a subdivision on top of an aquifer recharge zone<\/a>
\nor
\nlocating more toxic chemical plants in Lowndes County.
\nMaybe we should find out
\nwhat’s already in the landfill
\n
\non top of an aquifer recharge zone<\/a>
\nand a little bit uphill from the Withlacoochee River
\nin Lowndes County, Georgia.<\/p>\n

\n -jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site meeting, caller Anthony Samsel said (42 minutes and 10 seconds into the video) of a site in Massachusetts: I was the first person to track contamination of the ground to aquifers that travel several miles; plastics, formaldehyde, from a plastics manufacturing plant, and there was contamination of city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,41,32,73,55],"tags":[210,2010,3212,1230,8722,2710,8701,8699,8718,6920,8702,154,12,7,6918,8715,8731,6917,6919,6916,6,2376,8727,2597],"class_list":["post-5518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-health-care","category-pollution","category-safety","category-water","tag-aquifer","tag-cancer","tag-death","tag-ellis-black","tag-epa","tag-food","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-health-care","tag-jason-spencer","tag-lake","tag-landfill","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mary-street","tag-pollution","tag-safety","tag-seven-out","tag-sickness","tag-superfund","tag-valdosta","tag-ware-county","tag-water","tag-waycross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5518"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5525,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5518\/revisions\/5525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}