NCD980602163_19940728_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_News & Observer - Toxic level tested at landfill-OCR

JU L 28 9 4
Dollie Burwell, a member of a state group studying the landfill, says
the dump should be returned to the way it was in 1982.
Dennis Retzlaff, Warren County health director, talks about testing
· at the PCB landfill near Afton.
Toxic level tested at landfill
· Warren County' residentr-···
demand cleanup of dump
BY BEN STOCKING
STAFF WRITER
AFTON -State officials began
testing the contents of Warren
County's hazardous waste land-
fill Wednesday as environmen-
talists pressured them to clean
up the site.
The tests mark the first time
the state has tested the contents
of the dump since it was built in
1983 to contain soils contaminat-
ed with hazardous PCBs.
PCBs -polychlorinated bi-
phenyls -are a highly toxic
family of chemicals considered
a possible cause of cancer.
The tests are being taken
during a debate over whether
the contents of the landfill should
be "detoxified" -treated using
technology that might render
them harmless. ·
A dozen local residents and
representatives of environmen-
tal groups attended the testing
Wednesday and demanded that
the state clean up the landfill as
soon as possible. They urged
Gov. Jim Hunt, who was in office
when the landfill opened, to keep
an old promise: to detoxify the
dump as soon as the necessary
technology became available.
Pete Doorn, left, and Gray Stephens take samples from the ground atop the PCB landfill near Afton.
"Justice for Warren County
consists of nothing less than the
detoxification of the landfill,"
said Doilie Burwell, a Warren
County resident who serves on a
state committee studying the
future of the landfill.
"The only just thing to do is to
restore Warren County to the
way it was before 1982," she
said. ·
State officials said they need
more information about the con-
tents of the dump before decid-
ing whether to clean it up, which
would cost millions of dollars.
· Sharron Rogers, who helps
oversee the landfill for the state
Division of Solid Waste Manage-
ment, said the state took air and
surface soil samples . from the
landfill Wednesday. The tests
will resume today, when work-
ers will insert a probe into the
dump, which is 35 feet deep, and
remove water and soil samples
from inside.
The samples will be tested to
measure the PCB levels inside
the landfill. They ·will also be
tested for dioxin, a hazardous
byproduct of PCBs.
In addition, Rogers said, the
samples will be tested for a
variety of industrial.chemicals
and pesticides.
The test results, which will not
be available for. at least a month,
,J Louisburg
,,'
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. FJ NKLIN CO. . '10 MILES
The News & Observer
should allow the state to answer
some basic questions about the
dump, said Pat Williamson, a
spokesman for the Department
of Environment, Health and Nat-
ural Resources.
"Has there been any change in
the status of the soil? Has it
· changed on its own because of
Mother Nature?"
The results may show that the
threat posed by the dump is not
severe enough to justify spend-
irig millions of dollars to detoxify
· it, state officials said.
Environmentalists at the site
Wednesday said they expect the
. tests will show that the site poses
a threat to the local water
supply. The best way to protect
area residen~s, · they said, is to --
STAFF PHOTOS BY ROBERT MILLER
clean the site up as soon as
possible.
Among the groups demanding
detoxification of the dump were
Greenpeace, the &Iue Ridge En-
vironmental Defense League
and the N.C . Waste Awareness
Network.
Construction of the dump
prompted weeks of civil rights
protests by local residents and
environmentalists who argued
that the county had been target-
ed for the landfill because its
residents were mostly poor,
black and politically powerless.
Just over a year ago, a decade
after it was built, the landfill
drew renewed attention when
state officials announced that it
· was soaking in 13 feet of water
that wasn't supposed to be inside
it. They feared the water was
putting too much pressure on the
plastic liner inside the landfill
and might eventually cause it to
burst.
State officials speculated that
the water had collected inside
the landfill during construction,
after the soil was placed inside,
but before the dump was sealed
with a plastic liner. The water
fell during two severe rain-
storms.
Over the years, state officials
said, it probably trickled to the
bottom, forming a pool as _deep
as 13 feet. A pump intended to
remove the water malfunc-
tioned, they said.
Last year, the state set up a
committee of state officials and
Warren Cou~ty residents to con-
sider the future management of
the landfill and consider what to
do about the water.
That group requested the tests
that are being conducted this
week. The state's tests will be
monitored by Pauline Ewald, a
science adviser hired by the
group. Her environmental con-
sulting company, ECO, will con-
duct independent tests of the
samples taken by the state.
Rogers said the probe being
inserted into the landfill today
will also enable state officials to
quantify the amount of water
inside -which has been esti-
mated at 1 million gallons -and
determine the extent of the
threat the liquid poses.
The 2.5-acre landfill, near
Warrenton, looks like a football
field. It is surrounded by a
chain-link fence topped by
barbed wire and surrounded by
pine trees, poplars, elms and
sycamores.
Although the state has never
tested the contents of the land-
fill, twice a year it tests samples
taken from four monitoring
wells that surround the site.
State officials have never found
PCBs in those samples, William-
son said.
The dump was built after state
officials discovered in the late
1970s that a transformer compa-
ny had illegally sprayed PCBs
along roads in 14 counties. PCBs,
outlawed by the federal govern-
ment in 1977, were once used to ·
insulate tr<1psformers.