Anniston Star
July 16, 2003

Area residents express frustration at EPA's PCBs update

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
07-16-2003

Anniston residents had harsh words for Environmental Protection Agency officials during a heated public meeting Tuesday night.

More than 150 people attended the meeting, the first public PCBs update the EPA has given in a year. The gathering stretched on for three hours, the exchanges at times acerbic.

"I think Solutia should be here to answer some of the questions that I have, because you don't seem to know a lot," Barbara Ward told Pam Scully, the EPA's project manager for Anniston.

"I don't mean to insult you," Ward added.

"You expect me not to take that personally?" Scully said.

People expressed frustration with inactivity and lack of communication from the agency. They also voiced confusion about who is responsible for what when it comes to contamination. Complaints ranged from the very general to the very specific.

"We're looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, because we have children and grandchildren coming right along behind us, playing in the same dirt, breathing the same air," said one woman, wanting to know when the community could put contamination behind it.

"I do not consider putting something in the paper on Sunday, for a meeting on Tuesday, time enough," another woman said, referring to the amount of notice given about the meeting.

The EPA has been involved actively in Anniston for more than three years. The agency is conducting a lead cleanup and overseeing a PCB cleanup here.

The lead is believed to have come from the foundries that once flourished around town. Very high levels of lead have been found at about 270 properties in western Anniston so far.

For decades, Monsanto manufactured polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, at its plant in western Anniston. The plant now is owned by Solutia, a Monsanto spinoff.

PCBs were used widely to insulate electrical equipment, and have been linked to a range of health effects, including cancer. They contaminate local properties, ditches, waterways and floodplains, and have been found in some residents' blood.

Some people at the meeting said they did not understand why their properties were not being cleaned up, why their flooding complaints were not addressed, and why the company's landfill, where PCBs have been found in the air, has not been removed.

The EPA and Solutia have negotiated a broad cleanup agreement, or consent decree, that will not go into effect until it is approved by a federal judge.

"When we get the consent decree entered, we plan to remove all the PCBs," Scully said, urging residents to grant access to their properties for testing.

She said that the company and agency are moving forward with some components of the agreement, which angered some attendees. At times the talk devolved into shouting.

One man wanted to know what the agency was doing about health concerns.

"The EPA doesn't address health issues," Scully said. Another federal agency, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, is responsible for that, she explained.

"In other words, we got to suffer, because we got the stuff in our system and you're not going to do anything," he retorted before walking out.

In recent weeks, the EPA moved its community outreach office from Noble Street to a property on West 10th Street owned by Solutia.

Some residents have held the move up as evidence that the EPA is too close to the company.

In response, the agency is opening another office on 11th Street near the courthouse, Scully said.

After the presentation, some said it was too technical for anyone to understand

"When you're talking to a group of people, you must first realize where you are," Ward said. "If you start throwing out rhetoric, people don't know what you're talking about."

The meeting, hosted by Community Against Pollution, included updates on the chemical weapons incinerator and groundwater contamination.