EPA, local entities discuss institutional controls
Posted: Monday, Nov 23, 2009 - 07:34:12 pm MST
By Brad Fuqua, The Western News
During an initial step in the process to place legal or administrative restrictions on the former export plant site, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approached the City of Libby/Lincoln County Health Board on the subject of implementing institutional controls.
“The objective of institutional controls is to make sure people don’t come into contact with any contamination that’s left on that site. So, if they do come in contact, you need to know what to do … that’s the main objective,” said Rebecca Thomas, the EPA’s remedial project manager for several units in the Libby Superfund area, including the export plant site that is identified as Operable Unit 1.
Following a short presentation by Thomas that identified objectives, options and other considerations, Libby mayor Doug Roll stepped forward to say that the city would like to take the lead role in that process. After all, the city does own the property that encompasses OU1.
“The city would like to retain almost complete control,” Roll said. “We want to be the ones you go to first with what the institutional controls will be. We will use the City/County Health Board as a backup sort of thing. This is our specific property and it’s all in one piece. I think the city wants to be the lead on this.”
EPA officials and representatives from the state Department of Environmental Quality met with the Libby City council for a work session later the same day to discuss the property.
Specific remedial options were debated, such as how the EPA plans to prevent asbestos exposure at a boat ramp that is subject to erosion. The parties agreed that specifics of the cleanup and institutional controls should be discussed further after a Record of Decision is reached and the EPA begins engineering a detailed cleanup design.
“We’ll sit around the table again and hammer this out,” Roll said.
The city voiced its desire to have a strong role in determining viable institutional controls. Attorney Allan Payne, who is representing the city on the matter, asked that the EPA provide language in the ROD that it will work with the city to attain city-driven institutional controls.
At the health board meeting, Thomas listed a half-dozen objectives involved with institutional controls:
• Maintain the integrity of the remedy to ensure protection of human health and the environment into the future.
• Notify any users of the property, who may disturb contaminated soil, about the potential for residual asbestos contamination in defined areas.
• Provide guidance on how to manage the remaining contamination.
• Manage any changes in land use or property ownership to ensure continued protectiveness of the remedy.
• Community acceptance.
• Long-term viability and enforceability.
Several options were also offered ranging from a one-call notification center to proprietary control to possible special zoning or health board ordinances.
“We may be able to use one or more of these options,” Thomas said. “We’d like to have layers of institutional controls … to create protectiveness with the controls.”
Thomas went on to say that the EPA would continue to work with the Superfund Operations and Maintenance group to flush out options. Then, O&M could make recommendations to the city council.
The health board, meanwhile, would serve in a backup, general scope type of role.
The discussion of institutional controls was specific to the export plant property but Thomas also mentioned the same process upcoming for OU2 – the former screening plant site. The difference is that Mel and Lerah Parker privately own the property. A subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Co. also owns a portion of the land that falls within OU2.
(Western News reporter Canda Harbaugh contributed to this story).
* All comment posts will encounter a possible delay of up to 24 hours.
You must register with a valid email to post comments. Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Registered users sign in here: |
Become a Registered User |
|
|
|
