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Butte Priority Soils

EPA's Plan for Butte Federal Superfund Site

Federal Superfund: EPA's Plan for Butte Priority Soils

Comments by MEIC Board Member John W. Ray, January 6, 2005

The EPA’s proposed plan for Priority Soils ignores the input of Butte citizens and proposes a remedy that will neither protect human health and the environment nor allow for economic revitalization of the Butte Hill. What the EPA’s proposed plan would really do is retard economic revitalization, exacerbate the plight on the poor on the Butte Hill and leave in place only a permanent threat to public health.

The EPA Priority Soils Proposed Plan has the following failures:

It fails to protect human health and the environment because it calls for leaving toxic waste-in-place. Superfund was created to cleanup threats to human health, so it makes no sense to leave the toxic waste in place that is a threat to human health and that triggered the listing of the Priority Soils site as a Superfund site in the first place.
It fails, because it relies on caps and institutional controls, to provide a permanent cleanup as Superfund mandates. By the EPA’s own admission, caps and institutional controls are not permanent.
It fails, contrary to the Superfund mandate, to use innovative technologies or waste treatment.
It incorrectly applies the Superfund cost criteria by giving too much weight to saving ARCO money and too little weight to protecting human health. The EPA selected the cheapest remedy not the best remedy.
It ignores public comments. It ignores the input of the EPA's own Citizens’ Working Group and the consensus input that citizens provided at a public meeting at Montana Tech in early December 2003. Citizens have rejected the waste-in-place solution and called for maximum removal of contaminants. Citizens have called for promoting future productive land use. Citizens have called for promoting environmental justice on the Butte Hill. Citizens have called for the removal of the Parrott Tailings. EPA paid no attention to any of these citizen demands.
It ignores the positions of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Natural Resource Damage Program regarding the Parrott Tailings. The EPA has listened only to expert testimony that agreed with what they already wanted to do. If you disagree, the agency simply says you are wrong, no matter what expertise you possess.
It fails to consider issues related to productive future land use as required under numerous Superfund policies. Because Superfund liability follows waste, the Proposed Plan for Priority Soils would actually retard economic revitalization of the area and limit productive future land uses of the area. Who would want to invest in an area and accrue Superfund liability?
It fails to promote environmental justice and actually would increase the disparate toxics health burden borne by low-income residents of the Priority Soils Site.
It relies too heavily on a flawed and extensively criticized health risk assessment.
It fails to address, in a pro-active fashion, the issue of contaminated indoor/attic dust in the Priority Soils area.
It fails to reevaluate the extensive previous emergency response actions conducted at the Priority Soils site. The EPA promised citizens a comprehensive review of previous response actions using the full Nine Superfund Evaluation criteria. All citizens actually received was a re-wording of an old review document of past actions. In an exercise of wordsmithing, this document was simply restated to incorporate only the words of the Nine Evaluation Criteria. No comprehensive evaluation of past actions was done.

The Remedy for Priority Soils should:

Provide a pro-active remediation program for contaminated indoor/attic dust. The EPA should abandon the reactive approach that renters/owners need to initiate remediation. All homes and yards in the Priority Soils Superfund Site should be sampled for arsenic dust Those homes and/or yards which have elevated levels of arsenic contaminated dust should be fully and completely remediated and removed. Whether or not current pathways of exposure exist should be deemed to be irrelevant. If contaminants are present in the attic or in the yard or in the house, those contaminants should be completely removed.
Remove the Parrott Tailings.
Remove and thoroughly cleanup all source areas of contamination

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

National Environmental Trust: The NET website includes Superfund information, including some state-specific and site-specific info in several states.

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	You are here: Home → Mining → Mine Cleanup → Berkeley Pit (Butte) → Butte Priority Soils Document Actions Butte Priority Soils EPA's Plan for Butte Federal Superfund Site Federal Superfund: EPA's Plan for Butte Priority Soils Comments by MEIC Board Member John W. Ray, January 6, 2005 The EPA’s proposed plan for Priority Soils ignores the input of Butte citizens and proposes a remedy that will neither protect human health and the environment nor allow for economic revitalization of the Butte Hill. What the EPA’s proposed plan would really do is retard economic revitalization, exacerbate the plight on the poor on the Butte Hill and leave in place only a permanent threat to public health. The EPA Priority Soils Proposed Plan has the following failures: It fails to protect human health and the environment because it calls for leaving toxic waste-in-place. Superfund was created to cleanup threats to human health, so it makes no sense to leave the toxic waste in place that is a threat to human health and that triggered the listing of the Priority Soils site as a Superfund site in the first place. It fails, because it relies on caps and institutional controls, to provide a permanent cleanup as Superfund mandates. By the EPA’s own admission, caps and institutional controls are not permanent. It fails, contrary to the Superfund mandate, to use innovative technologies or waste treatment. It incorrectly applies the Superfund cost criteria by giving too much weight to saving ARCO money and too little weight to protecting human health. The EPA selected the cheapest remedy not the best remedy. It ignores public comments. It ignores the input of the EPA's own Citizens’ Working Group and the consensus input that citizens provided at a public meeting at Montana Tech in early December 2003. Citizens have rejected the waste-in-place solution and called for maximum removal of contaminants. Citizens have called for promoting future productive land use. Citizens have called for promoting environmental justice on the Butte Hill. Citizens have called for the removal of the Parrott Tailings. EPA paid no attention to any of these citizen demands. It ignores the positions of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Natural Resource Damage Program regarding the Parrott Tailings. The EPA has listened only to expert testimony that agreed with what they already wanted to do. If you disagree, the agency simply says you are wrong, no matter what expertise you possess. It fails to consider issues related to productive future land use as required under numerous Superfund policies. Because Superfund liability follows waste, the Proposed Plan for Priority Soils would actually retard economic revitalization of the area and limit productive future land uses of the area. Who would want to invest in an area and accrue Superfund liability? It fails to promote environmental justice and actually would increase the disparate toxics health burden borne by low-income residents of the Priority Soils Site. It relies too heavily on a flawed and extensively criticized health risk assessment. It fails to address, in a pro-active fashion, the issue of contaminated indoor/attic dust in the Priority Soils area. It fails to reevaluate the extensive previous emergency response actions conducted at the Priority Soils site. The EPA promised citizens a comprehensive review of previous response actions using the full Nine Superfund Evaluation criteria. All citizens actually received was a re-wording of an old review document of past actions. In an exercise of wordsmithing, this document was simply restated to incorporate only the words of the Nine Evaluation Criteria. No comprehensive evaluation of past actions was done. The Remedy for Priority Soils should: Provide a pro-active remediation program for contaminated indoor/attic dust. The EPA should abandon the reactive approach that renters/owners need to initiate remediation. All homes and yards in the Priority Soils Superfund Site should be sampled for arsenic dust Those homes and/or yards which have elevated levels of arsenic contaminated dust should be fully and completely remediated and removed. Whether or not current pathways of exposure exist should be deemed to be irrelevant. If contaminants are present in the attic or in the yard or in the house, those contaminants should be completely removed. Remove the Parrott Tailings. Remove and thoroughly cleanup all source areas of contamination FOR MORE INFORMATION: Butte Priority Soils Environmental Justice and Butte Priority Soils Failure of Proposed Plan for Priority Soils to Accomodate Public Comments Precautionary Principle and Priroity Soils Risk Assessment Trivalent Arsenic, Attic Dust, and Butte Priority Soils Waste-in-Place = Liability-in-Place National Environmental Trust: The NET website includes Superfund information, including some state-specific and site-specific info in several states. Montana Environmental Information Center Street Address: 107 W Lawrence St. #N-10, Helena, MT 59601 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1184 Helena, MT 59624 Phone: (406) 443-2520, Fax: (406) 443-2507, meic@meic.org	Also See Zortman and Landusky Mines Golden Sunlight Mine Canyon Resouces, Inc.