NCD980602163_19840921_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_Letter from Lee Mittelstadt to Editor of the NC Independent-OCR

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES
325 NORTH SALISBURY STREET
JAMES B. HUNT. JR. SARAH T. MORROW. M.D.. M.P.H.
GOVERNOR
Ms. Katherine Fulton, Editor
North Carolina Independent
Post Office Box 2690
Durham, North Carolina 27705
Dear Ms. Fulton:
RALEIGH 27611
September 21, 1984
SECRETARY
TELEPHONE
919/733-41534
The current campaign for the United States Senate between Governor Jim Hunt
and Senator Jesse Helms has brought the issue of PCB's back into the headlines.
For several months, I have watched as one person after another accuses ~o~ernor Hunt :
of having "allowed toxic material, PCB, to lie along our roads for four years"
and then ''dumping the PCB in Warren County."
This is a misleading and inaccurate oversimplificqtion of a very .. compli'cated
issue. I would like to present the facts surrounding the PCB controversy in order
to set the record straight.
North Carolina officials were first informed of possible PCB contamination
along a Warren County roadside on July 30, 1978. We irrunediately sent chemists and
environmental engineers to the site to determine just how large of an area was
contaminated and in what concentrations. After three days, we had identified more
than 240 miles of roadsidesin 14 counties where PCB-laced oil had been deliberately
and illegally dumped.
Health and environmental officials met and decided on an immediate effective
solution to immobilize the PCB's by placing activated carbon and asphalt on top of
the PCB's to prevent the contamination from spreading and to minimize any threat to
public health. This action was taken less than three weeks after we received the
first report of PCB contamination.
Once we were assured that the PCB was not going to migrate off-site, and later
sampling in 1982 demonstrated that it did not, we started work on a long-term
solution. Our first choice was to treat the contaminated soil in place, but the
federal Environmental Protection Agency, which had to approve whatever solution we
came up with, decided that in-place treatment was too experimental and too risky.
We then considered the option of picking up the contaminated soil and burning
it at "an incinerator. However, the amount of soil involved made that option
practically impossible and too expensive.
,,..
Piige 2
The only remaining course open to us at that time was to pick up the more than ~
50,000 tons of soil and place it in a secure. well-designed landfill. We surveyed fl
more than 90 potential landfill sites in the 14 affected counties. We narrowed
the choice to six sites and selected the one in Warren County because it met all · of
EPA's technical requirements and it was avai1able.
We were prepared to build the landfill and start moving the soil in the fall
of 1979, but before we could begin construction a temporary restraining order was
issued and a lawsuit filed by local officials and residents of Warren County.
That lawsuit, which prohibited us from taking action to solve the problem, dragged
on for two years before it was dismissed by a federal district court judge. His
decision was appealed.
Once Warren County officials were assured that every precaution was being taken
to make the landfill safe, the appeal was dropped. As soon as the appeal was dropped ~
we were able to move forward with construction of the landfill and clean-up of the
soil. Follow-up testing showed that all of the contaminated soil was removed from
the roadsides.
During that time we also vigorously pursued the prosecution of the men
responsible for dumping the PCB-laced oil along the roadsides. They were convicted
of criminal charges; two received active jail terms, two received probation. We .
are continuing legal action against these men in an effort to recover the cost of
the clean-up.
We also continue to closely monitor the landfill in Warren County. We conduct
monthly and twice-yearly inspections. To date, all of our inspections have shown
absolutely no leakage of PCB from the landfill. We will continue to monitor the
landfill regularly in the future.
Bear in mind _ that all of the decisions concerning the PCB landfill were made
not by one individual, but by teams of state and federal environmental and health
experts and by the courts. If the finger of blame must be pointed it should be
pointed not at the state or the governor, but at the men responsible for the
contamination.
Sincerely,
-~~ '-rJ/U-kt?~✓ ,,., I 1~<-< k---u--'-'-.
Lee Mittelstadt
Public Affairs Officer
Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Branch
919/733-4471
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