At what cost toxic-waste cleanup?

BORN AGAIN: A proposed federal cleanup and cap of the former J.M. Mills landfill, as depicted in a rendering. / RENDERING COURTESY POTENTIALLY RESPONSIBLE PARTIES GROUP
BORN AGAIN: A proposed federal cleanup and cap of the former J.M. Mills landfill, as depicted in a rendering. / RENDERING COURTESY POTENTIALLY RESPONSIBLE PARTIES GROUP

It’s not surprising that businesses facing the bill for a $40 million Blackstone River toxic-waste cleanup consider the federal Superfund project overkill.
They’re not the only ones, however.
Residents, town officials and groups promoting the area are also raising concerns about whether the scale of the cleanup could hinder efforts to restore a corridor defined, both positively and negatively, by its industrial history.
“If that is the only alternative to keeping the river clean, I will support it,” said Cumberland Town Council President James Higgins about the proposed cleanup. “But if there are other ways that are more aesthetically pleasing, I would prefer it.”
The Cumberland Town Council last month voted to ask the EPA to extend the official comment period on the plan so that the town could hire an expert to evaluate if less-disruptive alternatives were feasible.
On October 31, five days before the comment period was set to expire, the EPA granted an extension until Jan. 23.
In the works for more than a decade, the Peterson/Puritan Superfund cleanup isn’t particularly unusual for a toxic-waste cleanup.
The EPA proposes digging out contaminated soil at the site – made up of former landfills – and then building a series of caps over the land.
But the size of the area that would be capped and its proximity to the Blackstone, which has become a popular recreation area in recent years and the subject of a bid for national park status, makes the project potentially controversial.
To fully cap the land, the now overgrown, woodsy site would have to be completely cleared of trees for a synthetic covering to extend all the way down to a rock rubble wall along the river.
At approximately 200 acres stretching from the Mendon Road Stop & Shop to Hope Global’s factory on Martin Street, that’s a large area of the river to be left unusable and barren, with only hook-shaped venting pipes for decoration. “The EPA solution is excessive and unnecessary,” said David Preston, founder of public relations firm New Harbor Group, which was hired by the group of companies that may have to pay for the cleanup to push for a less-expensive option. “Their solution creates an aesthetic scenario that is unacceptable. It doesn’t look good and shuts out recreational use forever.”
Better, say the 132 “potentially responsible parties,” is an alternative plan that would allow some vegetation, especially along the riverbank.
Under this alternative, the largest section of the site would be put under a “hybrid cap,” that would cap the top one-third of the site, but cover the slopes down to the river with soil.
The hybrid cap is also significantly less expensive, estimated to cost between $25 million and $30 million instead of $40 million.
“The EPA proposal basically wraps the entire site in plastic and, in order to keep the plastic in place, puts riprap and a high wall along the river,” Preston said. “It channels the river and increases the likelihood of flooding downstream.”
EPA officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the suggestion that the cap was excessive, but in a 38-page report on its proposal said, among other things, that the cap was necessary to prevent toxins from escaping the site in the event of a major flood.
The project being planned now is actually the second phase of the Peterson/Puritan Superfund cleanup and follows remediation in an industrial park to the north during the 1990s.
It was in that section that Peterson/Puritan Inc. built a factory in 1959 to make aerosol consumer products and where, in 1974, a rail car accident spilled an estimated 6,000 gallons of solvent, according to the EPA. In 1979, drinking water wells in both Lincoln and Cumberland were closed because of contamination.
The areas under scrutiny now include the former J.M. Mills landfill, an unnamed island where waste was dumped, and the Nunes Parcel adjacent to Stop & Shop. The 132 “potentially responsible parties” include a wide range of organizations that may have been involved in operations or been customers of the landfills. They range from Hasbro Inc., to Benny’s, General Electric and Harvard University and a separate process will determine who among them will pay for the cleanup and how much.
Any neighborhood facing such an extensive and messy cleanup would be concerned about the impacts, but for the Blackstone Valley, deforesting roughly a mile of riverfront also challenges efforts to turn the area into a tourist destination.
At the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, Community Planner Megan DiPrete said while the nonprofit has not come out against the EPA plan, it has requested the agency provide more detailed renderings of the project to make sure it doesn’t derail efforts to enhance the corridor, including potential national park designation.
“A remediation plan that embraces the corridor is important to local and regional economies and the environment,” DiPrete said.
In a letter to the EPA last month, Blackstone Valley Tourism Council President Robert Billington was more direct about his concerns with the plan.
“The remediation plan should use an approach that is environmentally safe of course, but it must also use an approach that is aesthetically pleasing and useful,” Billington wrote. “Scenic paths, vegetation and river access are minimal requirements for this site. We do not see the U.S. EPA plans meeting these needs.”
EPA Community Involvement Coordinator Sarah White said in an email last week that, barring more delays, she expected the agency would issue a final decision on the cleanup in late spring, after which a design process would begin that typically would take about two years. •

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