Martinsville Cleanup. "Workers begin toxic cleanup in Martinsville: Environmental company's project to decontaminate soil, water polluted by dry-cleaning solvent could take 3 to 5 years" is the headline to this story today in the Indianapolis Star. Some quotes:
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. -- Years after a dry-cleaning solvent contaminated Martinsville's air, soil and water, an Indianapolis environmental company has started cleaning up the mess. * * *The Star also publishes today a letter from Clarke Kahlo of the Hoosier Environmental Council. Some quotes:"That contamination has been common knowledge for many years," said Tom Tackett, director and pastor of Manna Mission, a homeless shelter just north of the work site. "It is sad that it took this long to get anything going."
City, state and federal officials believe Masterwear Corp., a former industrial dry-cleaning company, contaminated soil behind its plant with perchloroethylene, or PCE. Masterwear used the solvent to clean oil from gloves and towels used by industries. The company closed 13 years ago.
State inspectors believe drums of contaminated oils and other chemicals stacked on bare ground behind the building rusted and leaked. Over time, the suspected cancer-causing chemical soaked into the ground and was carried by groundwater more than a mile to the city's wells.
In the Martinsville groundwater pollution case, state regulators at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management apparently took no meaningful preventive or corrective action despite citizen complaints. As a result of IDEM's laxity during the Bayh and O'Bannon administrations, the water supply of the city of 12,000 people has been poisoned and the water customers will be stuck with the high cost of establishing the needed new wells. * * *Clean Water Act Costs. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a story today that begins:Overall responsibility for this agency inaction can be assessed to the two Democratic governors who administered our state programs during the period. In past years, a short-staffed IDEM has struggled to keep up with the workload and was often required to respond to political interference with its enforcement actions.
From the recent statements of the two major gubernatorial candidates regarding the need to encourage business, it appears that, if elected, either might further diminish the ability of our regulatory agencies to provide adequate protection. Thus Hoosiers shouldn't necessarily anticipate much improvement in our 48th ranking for environmental quality for the foreseeable future. However, if citizens speak out about our need for better policies, the candidates, and the next governor, are more likely to be responsive.
Meeting federal clean water standards will cost cities in the Maumee River basin more than $1 billion, money local officials say the federal government needs to help provide.Landfill. The Columbia City Post&Mail reports today that the county will buy the old landfill. This is a followup to a story we posted here on June 23rd. A quote:Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard said Monday that a report examining the plight of the communities across northeast Indiana, southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio found that for all of them to come into compliance with the Clean Water Act, they would have to spend $1 billion for infrastructure such as sewage treatment plants and new sewer lines.
The cost for Fort Wayne is about $250 million, which officials plan to spend over the next 25 years separating storm sewers from sanitary sewers and increasing the sewage plant’s capacity. But they fear the U.S. Justice Department, which has already threatened the city with a lawsuit over its pollution of the Maumee, will order the timetable sped up or even more upgrades than are already planned.
Whitley County officials agreed informally last Friday to purchase property that was once used as a landfill by the county. The 38-acre tract, owned by the late Ben Lott, was to be auctioned Tuesday with four other tracts of land in the Lott estate, but subject to formal approval by the Whitley County Commissioners on Tuesday, the former landfill site will be sold to the county.Posted by Marcia Oddi at June 29, 2004 12:33 PMAttorney for the Lott estate, Hugo Martz said a purchase agreement for the property was signed early today by Ben Lott's estate representative, his wife Maxine Lott. Martz said Lott agreed to sell the property to protect it against potential harm. "We believe it is a win-win situation. The county now has control of the property and will protect it, assuring the landfill will not be disturbed in the future," Martz said.
The tract of land has been maintained by Whitley County and Lott in accordance with regulations placed on the it by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management since the landfill was closed in the mid- to late-1980s.