"To obtain the truth, justice and a safe and permenant cleanup of the IEL toxic waste dump to mitigate exposures to prevent future illnesses."
Concerned Citizens Lake Township
Bennett and Williams Report 09-14-06
Read More“As we have discussed in earlier reports on the IEL site, there are basically three major water systems that can carry contamination away from the IEL site. These systems as surface water; starting on the east side of the site with Metzgers Ditch; regional subsurface ground water flow of dissolved volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semivolatile organic compounds (SemiVOCs); and the deep, top of bedrock ground water flow of dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) which flow by gravity along the top of bedrock in the direction(s) of bedrock drainage. This third mechanism is controlled by gravity and may or may not have anything to do with the general direction of the two other systems.”
Energy secretary wants more money to clean up radioactive contamination
Repository
Friday, February 1, 2002
By JOHN NOLAN Associated Press writer
CINCINNATI — U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday said more money is needed each year to speed cleanup of radioactive contamination at Energy Department sites nationwide.
Abraham proposed that $800 million annually go toward expediting cleanup of the 111 sites, of which only 30 are open. His proposal is part of the Energy Department’s $6.7 billion request for basic site cleanup. More details were to be released Monday with the department’s entire 2003 budget request.
Abraham said that while quicker cleanup at first will cost taxpayers more money, they eventually will save billions of dollars.
Read MoreRadiation? Mystery may never be solved at IEL
Sunday, December 2, 2001
By BRAD DAVIS Repository staff writer
LAKE TWP. – Drab military cargo trucks, rumbling through a slumbering Uniontown in the middle of the night. Radioactive warning placards on tanker trucks, spied through the blinds of nearby living room windows.
Mysterious deliveries of shiny, metal, Volkswagen-sized plutonium carriers, ordered to be buried among the rest of the trash.
Stories such as these have circulated quietly around northwestern Lake Township for years. Some have been vague references to what went into the Industrial Excess Landfill. Others have been more specific accounts.
Read MoreUniontown IEL 2016 FIVE YEAR REVIEW BY REGION 5 US EPA
US EPA Region 5
Uniontown IEL Project Manager –
Ms. Karen Cibulski
Chicago, Illinois .
Re: Region 5’s Uniontown IEL Superfund Site’s “2016 5 Year Review : Citizens’ Plea for Scientific Accountability by EPA Adhering to What is Considered “Best Available Science” – (by Following its own Guidelines )
As part of US EPA Region 5’s 2016 Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund Site “Five Year Review” required, citizens formally request that US EPA Region 5 use this opportunity to correct past serious mistakes made at IEL, so grave that these mistakes, many believe, led to fatally flawed clean up decisions being made – the killing off of the various basic institutional controls /clean up components one by one – measures that Region 5 had vehemently once promised this town would be carried out to insure that toxins would remain “isolated” in perpetuity… Due to what appeared to citizens/ many elected officials to be immense political pressure/arm twisting (and worse – see Dr. Toby Clark’s follow up Clean Sites report done for US EPA on IEL for US EPA) – , today, all that remains of the so called “clean up” is the continued flushing of the site into our area’s aquifer, a toxic dump that, according to Ohio EPA, contains “greater than 780,000 tons of hazardous substances“, perched just above our area’s water supply.
Read MoreLetters to US EPA Region 5 Re: IEL Toxic Gasses & 5 Year Review Requirements
Read MoreGiven significant public pressure, after EPA had played down the content of what might be found in the IEL gases, repeatedly claiming back then, (in the mid 80s), it was just good old garbage dump methane, Region 5 miraculously chose to reverse a decision it had made prior to not conduct VOC testing/ chemical analysis on IEL’s gases, (during Superfund reauthorization when funding was tight they had claimed), and the Region decided to test for other constituents besides methane due to public/media pressure. From that testing, EPA indeed learned that at least 24 VOCs accompanied the methane, including Phosgene nerve gas. Yet, initially, an outside gas contractor US EPA had hired from Lorton, Va. in attending one of our many public meetings, trivialized the VOC’s concentration.…However, years later, he returned to Ohio and our TIC meeting, in approx. 1992, and in a stunning reversal of sorts, he informed us that the IEL landfills gases were ranging 8 – 9 % for Volatile Organic Chemicals, whereas, he told us that at a “typical” landfill, they would expect to only see VOC concentrations in a landfill gas at around .1 % . ( His name was Jim Walsh, if you have trouble finding the file, I believe his firm was called SES).