NCD980602163_19981114_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_Raleigh New & Osberver - PCB pollution now haunts Wake site-OCR

P-~.B ·pollution now h3Unts Wake:~site Toxic confainlnatlon from a company whose waste from the 1970s Is buried 11 Warren County Is detected near Raleigh. BY J.Alla ELI SHJll'll'ER STAFF WRl1'& Twenty years after a contractor 1 for Ward 'lnnsformer Co. ilepUy . du,mpaddqerous dlemicaJs along North Carolina highways, the com-pany bas again come under scruti-ny for potentially toxic polluti9n. State inspectors told the U.S . Environmental ?-otection Agency this summer that they had found dirt, mud and~ash contaminated. with polychlorinated biphenyls <PCBs), dioxins, arsenic and metals at Ward's headquarters near . Raleigh-Durliam International ~rt. The EPA responded that inore investigation is warranted, and the site may be includea on the agency's Superfund list.of the nation's most polluted places. 1be Supel'fund designatiM, which would make the site eligible for fed-eral cleanup funds, would be the sec-ond associated with Ward. The 1978 spraying of PCB-tainted oil along· more than 200 miles of roads land-ed the company's owner, Robert · "Buck" Ward Jr., in prison and led to a second environmental debacle when Gov. Jim Hunt ordered the bwial of the \V8Ste in Wamm County.' Now saturated with water, the PCB landfill in Warren County will costfaxpayers up to $24 million to cleanup. State environmental officials acknowledge that levels of pollu-See PouUT10.-a, PAGE MA .._; /"
_ POLLUTION COMTINUEO P110M PAGf lA i.nts they ~ntt¥-•aawed.at ~~~~ie: at~ Superfund sit.es. But they said the <••etion bf PCBs in a ere_. and wttud downstream tram ~a·~ makes Ulecuea:~ · · ~1s not~ w11o•; in in;nflliatectanaer•~-..-,,, ~ Pat DeRosaof the N.f. DA¥ion of Wute Mana•mesafs ltlpert\ind eedion..-whatwe'reJoofinaatli(lW is, tile possibility of a long-term Utreat.tron, the site and •~ tllat • it doesn't get.,,.~" •~w41,,-..~llfare ........ --~~ ·==· ..... ~~II . . ··. ' .. 'II!'.-.• • ....... ' -. ·. ..,,~~--r~=~: -•IS' findings. _ -W.-haven't been notified by the DA;andwe're.reserving ourcom-....,unUI such time as we can dis-cuss this matter with the EPA," l'lardsaid But the issue oouJd become a mat-ter for public debate tfthe ~ again . tries fD make \\\ird payftrthecleanup. The name of Ward Transformer · and PCBs have been intertwined for 20 years. Until the mid-1970s, PCBs were commonly used in an insulating fluid to keep transform-ers from overheating. But the fed-eral government banned PCBs in 1977 after finding that ·exposure to them can cause cancer in humans. That left Ward with a large amount of toxic chemicals on its hands. Although he paid a New York company to get rid of more than 30,000 gallons of PCB-laced oil, Buck Ward later testified in court that he didn't know the contractor's solution was using a specially designed tanker truck to dribble the mess along road sides from Fort Bragg to th, Vll'ginia border. The dumping horrified the state. Under pressure to get rid of the problem, Hunt decided to excavate the contaminated soil aµid bury it in r ~, . \VlrrenCo-..n•.;~1'J8Slive ......... ~~ti p ·~--' . ' ._ y ~.~.1119.·IZz..ttne1~ imll ·~~_.-_,._,. _7atv:::~-.. ~~-.--~---beacittvarierS-,at 6ffl MOQBt ~~~~~=~ act and rebw1d large trans-formers, which are used in facto,. ries, hospitals, laboratories and other facilities to modify electrical voltage to usable levels. Officials found soil contamination inside and around the company, presumably from chemicals released during years of stripping and rebuilding transformers. But the government's efforts were focused on getting Ward to pay for cleaning up the roadside spills. Although government attorneys originally sought $12 million in com-pensatory and punitive damages, they settled with Ward in 1986 for $3 million, the cost of the clean-up. Tom Moffitt, a special deputy attomey general who worked on the case, said the state never wanted to drive Ward out of business. "It makes sense to keep the com-pany in business to generate cash flow to clean up their own mess," he said "lfwe put them out of business, then it's going to be tax dollars to clean up the mess because they're going to go bankrupt and disappeac" The government didn't get its money until a decade after the set-tlement. It had to seize some of Ward'll!~~iv and ev• c .... erri~lh_e~ qw,uters, ~ ofthe' pefflttiOJl:-Th.♦-• :, .. :1:~':tlf.C:• . . aiteflluclt ~~ a~M~-. . .. . . ',. , •~· ~· ,goyenment __ ._ . weren't through dealing with . . ' ~. tbadreJDOWllJ fromany~ sibility for the soil laced with its spi)l81l· oil. When the Jandftll whel.1,: that soil was stored began t.o fill with water, residents looked to the state for a solution. 'Ibis year, the GeneI'{II Assembly voted to spend $2 million to start detoxifying the dump, a process expected to take several years and cost $24 million. But Ward Transformer could be held responsible for what inspect.ors found on its own property. A s¢es of investigations began in 1993 on the basis_ of reports that the company might go bankrupt, DeRosa said In February 1997, environmental officials wearing protective gloves and boots dug up soil samples all around the property, which is in an industrial area wedged between Aviation Parkway and the one com-pleted section of Raleigh's Outer Loop. Stained soil near the compa-ny's incinerator was shown to con-tain levels of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and copper that were above resi-dential health standards. Lower levels of PCBs were detected in mud ~t the bottom of the ~~•:8Pm'W'iter ppnd and :bjttle Brier.~ il tributary. bf the Neuse ffiver. · JeanilteStiiqeY,a... e. nvh'OD.-lllen~whodidmuch oftbe sampling,. salcj. the contiminati~n ·probab)y dates to tbeJea.~t-ed daysofthe'.lt'IOs. Sbellid,tliere's :)ittle.. chance of the public's coming t,ti contactwitb the pollution. But, :.';iillf said,"it'snotsomething;youjust IWl}lt t.o wall( away from." ._re1ati\leb'lowle\lelaof pollu-jalitaandthaJackof~ '< ~t.er or other acute health threats E.· de one Superfund 9lll)ert, Joel .. · · om, doubt the site would . • the EP.Ns National Prloriey List ,bf the nation'~ most polluted lites. • ~e government is. not going to inhereandspe(t(Ja,,Mm~t e:::eaning up the.," said ::;: om, who.has worked as a · ft (11 tbe-\\lmen Couneysit.e. Officials have besitated to punish lie company for environmental v.io-' ,Jations. w.,i's -..Water treat-;ment plant and b\Jm-off oven have violat.ed pollution restrictions with~ out penalQ state recon1s show. ~t.erfrom the company's $1D81ltreatment plant bas been t.est-;, ed t.oxicfcr aquatic Ol'gaDisms atJeast seven times in the past five years, drawing notices from the state buh10, fines. Ward's incinerat.or-used to burn transformer wires to recover. valuablecowei--vioJatedits~ by burning transformer oil in 1993. '1be state's response: a notice of vi<>'-lation and a~ not do it again. EPA officials said they expect to decide within a few weeks about the next step in dealingwith the Ward site. The contamination does not sur-prise Bill Easterly, who worked at the company as a tniclt driver for · 18 years until 1997. Last year, Easterly complained to the state about tainted soil on the site. _ . In an interview, Easterly said-he now has a better 1U1derstanding of why people in Warren County have been so upset about the landfill. "Those people up ii1 Warrenton had ~ live with the stuff," he said. 1 Jalles Eli .Sldfler can lie reached atl36-5701 orlslalfler@INIII '<.,}