Cole testifies for protective cleanup for Cincinnati hazardous waste site

The following Op-Ed summarizes Dr. Cole's detailed technical comments submitted to Ohio EPA in March 2010. Ohio EPA is in the process of considering comments and will in coming months issue its final cleanup plan for the site. 

        

 Pleasant Ridge is a residential Cincinnati community filled with homes, tree-lined streets, parks and neighborhood shops – a great place to raise children. However, the area has a serious problem. For more than fifty years a Hilton Davis Company which made specialty chemicals used the site’s deep, unlined ravine to dump its chemical wastes. The wastes have badly contaminated the site’s groundwater and soils. Some of the chemicals are cancer-causing. Kodak purchased the facility in 1988 and is liable for the site’s environmental problems and cleanup. 

    

Sadly, Kodak’s “cleanup” plan for the “Former Hilton Davis Site” would leave all the ravine’s toxic wastes in place. The company contends that a thin cover layer of soil can prevent wastes and contamination from seeping into the environment. Wishful thinking – many of the buried chemicals will remain hazardous for an indefinitely long period, yet the soil cover is likely to erode allowing toxic vapors to seep into air and into existing or future buildings. (Photo from 1966 shows drums at ravine edge)

    

To the dismay of residents and local governments, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency “cleanup” proposal simply regurgitates Kodak’s with minor adjustments. By doing so OEPA ignores a court-ordered Consent Decree requiring cleanup methods that will minimize the release of contamination and bring “the greatest improvement to (and the least negative impact on) public health, welfare and environment.” Unfortunately, Kodak and OEPA have ignored the court’s order by rejecting well established “source removal” technologies in favor of an unreliable, lowest-cost “cleanup.”

    

While saving Kodak tens of millions, the proposal will impose serious risks and costs on the public. OEPA’s proposal will put in place a permanent deed restriction that prohibits residential units, schools, daycare centers, religious facilities, and many health and commercial enterprises but also allows Kodak to bar any specific development at its discretion. Coupled with ineffective “cleanup,” these restrictions will likely deter potential developers and make beneficial redevelopment more difficult and costly. Residents also fear that the plant will soon shut down permanently leaving in place an abandoned lot, high levels of contamination, and declining property values.

    

Thousands of residents, the Pleasant Ridge Community Council (PRCC), the Mayor of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati City Council, the Village of Golf Manor, and City of Norwood through their respective City Councils have petitioned OEPA to change direction and require a cleanup that will fully protect public health and enhance the site’s potential for community-beneficial redevelopment.  

Henry S. Cole, Ph.D., an environmental scientist and President of  Henry S. Cole and Associates has been a scientific advisor and consultant to the Pleasant Ridge Community Council and the Citizens Concerned about Hilton Davis for more than a decade.

Cole and Associates awarded CDC Contract to Establish Community Action Committee in cancer cluster community

Cole and Associates have garnered a two-year contract to establish and operate a community advisory committee (CAC) in the Tamaqua, PA where a cluster for a rare blood cancer (Polycythemia Vera) has been confirmed by CDC. The purposes of the CAC are to:

• Establish clear lines of communications between members of the community and the government agencies and the researchers conducting additional studies.
• Ensure that government responds to community questions and concerns
• Provide an effective avenue for citizen input into decisions being made on research and support for patients, their families and their health care providers. 

For a description of the CAC project and the problems in the Tamaqua area see: 

Hometown Hazards

The NEPCO fluidized bed unit north of Tamaqua and west of Hazelton uses the coal wastes left over from former anthracite mining. The combustion provides large volumes of fly ash with arsenic and other toxic metals.  The plant is one six coal waste burners in the area. There are also six Superfund Sites in area where the cancer cluster was discovered. 


For a complete report on the cancer cluster -- Polycythemia Vera (a rare blood cancer), see the following link. Henry S. Cole is a co-author. 
"A Multidisciplinary Investigation of a Polycythemia Vera Cancer Cluster of Unknown Origin"