 November 25, 2008 Reported By: Josie Huang
The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered a former owner of an Orrington chemical plant to remove hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of soil and sediment from the site, which has tested positive for eight types of hazardous waste. After several months of negotiations failed to produce an agreement, the DEP set a May deadline for Mallinckrodt Inc. to begin the soil cleanup at the former HoltraChem facility on the banks of the Penobscot River. As Josie Huang reports, the Missouri-based company has already spent several million dollars to remove contaminated storage tanks and buildings from the site. From the mid-1960s to 2000, HoltraChem produced chlorine and other chemicals and was New England's largest polluter of toxic mercury.
"We have been working on the order and the clean up for a long time with the company, and had acknowledged that we didn't agree on the long term clean up." David Littell is the commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. He says his office was also concerned that Mallinckrodt was not planning to invest in further cleanup of the site, which he says is necessary. "The order requires that the responsible companies, Mallinckrodt and US Surgical, which are related entities, to clean up all of the contaminated waste and five landfills on site as well as contaminated soils and sediments on site and in the cove that's just adjacent in the Penobscot River."
The 78-page order identifies eight types of hazardous waste on the HoltraChem site, including mercury, waste paint, paint solvents and acetone. The total volume of material to be excavated is estimated at 247,000 cubic yards. Littell says that five years ago, Mallincrodt estimated the cost to fully clean up the property would be upwards of $230 million.
The Maine Peoples Alliance has been voicing its concerns of mercury exposure to workers and spills into the river since the early 1990s. In 2002 MPA won a lawsuit requiring the company to fund a study of the downriver effects of mercury and fund full removal of mercury in the river.
"Our major concern is that whenever you start to make victories on a major progressive issue, people tend to lose interest and lose excitement. So we're trying to make sure that the entire case gets followed through and that we actually do get all the mercury on the site cleaned up." Adam Goode is an environmental organizer with the MPA. This summer he called for the DEP to take action to push the clean up effort along. "We're really excited that they took initiative to be aggressive and make sure that the right thing is done and the mercury does get cleaned up."
Orrington town attorney Ed Bearor agrees. "We will obviously follow this as it unfolds and probably participate to the extent allowed in the BEP proceedings which will probably take place in early 2009."
Neither Bearor nor DEP Commissioner Littell are aware of residents of Orrington or neighboring communities coming forward with documented health problems related to the HoltraChem site. Mallinckrodt spokeswoman JoAnna Schooler declined to comment because she says the company has not yet seen the DEP'S order. |