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Do IT this week: Layering
Proposal will put Superfund site in Uniontown up for grabs soon
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Apr 25, 2008
Seeking new owner: A former Uniontown toxic-waste dump that is cleaner than it once was.
The Industrial Excess Landfill, a Superfund site that has been in the headlines for three decades, will soon be for sale under proposed consent decrees in U.S. District Court in Youngstown.
Negotiating terms of the sale will be up to potential buyers and Industrial Excess Landfill Inc., the Akron-based company that owns the 30-acre site off Cleveland Avenue Northwest.
But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has imposed restrictions on what can be done with the land: No houses, apartments, excavating or wells for drinking water.
One potential buyer is Lake Township, which could use the site for greenspace or a nature preserve.
Township Trustee Galen Stoll said Lake's level of interest would depend on the price, the availability of funds and the use restrictions, he said.
Stoll said the township's attorney, Charles Hall, is trying to arrange meetings with the federal EPA and Ohio EPA to learn more about the restrictions.
Lake has been considering the former dump for use as a nature preserve or greenspace for years. In 2000, the township got a $100,000 federal grant to investigate future uses of the IEL property.
The idea was to keep the site as undeveloped greenspace and put park facilities, including a trail and picnic area, on adjacent land.
Paul Wolford, a spokesman for the four companies responsible for monitoring pollution at the the dump, Goodyear, Bridgestone-Firestone, B.F. Goodrich and GenCorp, said they are interested in con
tinuing efforts to turn the site into a community-based nature preserve.
But Chris Borello of the grass-roots organization Concerned Citizens of Lake Township called the sale of the dump ''unthinkable . . . until the truth is learned.''
Her group is pushing for hearings in Congress for what she called the ''fraudulent science'' used by the U.S. EPA in dealing with questions of whether radioactive material was buried at Uniontown. The EPA has insisted there are no radiation problems at the dump.
Agreement to sell
What is triggering the sale of the toxic-waste dump is a proposed settlement between the federal EPA and three parties that owned and operated the site: Hyman Budoff of Akron and two Budoff-owned companies, Hybud Equipment Co. and Industrial Excess Landfill Inc.
In an agreement with the federal government, Budoff and his companies have agreed to sell the IEL site and a smaller adjacent property at 12646 Cleveland Ave. N.W. in order to help reimburse the U.S. and and Ohio EPAs for years of testing work done there.
The federal government will get 95.43 percent of the net sale proceeds; Ohio will get the remaining 4.57 percent.
If a sale for fair-market value cannot be arranged within six months, Budoff and his companies will have to meet with federal and state officials to determine the next step.
Budoff and his companies also have been ordered to pay $210,000 under the proposed court settlement. That money will be split in the same way between the federal government and Ohio.
Timothy Thurlow, an EPA attorney based in Chicago, said the government decided not to seek more because of the defendants' limited ability to pay.
The agreement also bans the federal and state governments and Budoff and his companies from suing each other over the landfill.
Budoff, who denies any liability in the agreement, must maintain all landfill-related corporate records.
A second consent decree was negotiated with former landfill owner-operators Charles and Merle Kittinger and Kittinger Trucking Co.
The Akron couple and their company are only required to pay $954 and $46, respectively, to the federal and state governments because of their limited financial resources, Thurlow said.
30 days to comment
A 30-day, public-comment period on the two agreements began on April 11 with notice published in the Federal Register.
Comments should be addressed to the Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division and mailed to P.O. Box 7611, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20044-7611, or e-mailed to pubcomment-ees.enrd@usdoj.gov. The Department of Justice case number — 90-11-3-247/2 — should be referenced in the comments.
The documents are available for review at http://www.usdoj.gov/enrd/Consent_Decrees.html.
The agreements must be approved by U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus, who took over the IEL case in 2006 after the death of U.S. District Judge John Manos. The case began in 1989.
Once finalized, the agreements will end the federal government's cost-recovery efforts at Uniontown, Thurlow said.
On April 7, 2005, four rubber companies that had buried hazardous waste at the dump — Goodyear, Bridgestone-Firestone, B.F. Goodrich and GenCorp — agreed to implement the final $7 million site plan and repay $17.9 million to the federal government and $875,000 to Ohio.
Goodyear and Bridgestone-Firestone still have Akron operations. B.F. Goodrich has moved its corporate offices to North Carolina. GenCorp is now part of Fairlawn-based Omnova Solutions Inc.
The toxic waste remains buried at IEL. Under the site plan, the contaminated aquifer is being monitored and allowed to naturally cleanse itself. Methane gas was collected and burned, although that system has been turned off for a couple of years.
On Oct. 2, 2007, PPG Industries Inc. and Morgan Adhesives Co. together paid nearly $1.1 million to the federal government and $15,984 to Ohio for their involvement at Uniontown.
Thurlow said PPG and Morgan Adhesives did not dump as much hazardous waste at the site as the rubber companies did.
The six companies can still file legal claims against other companies that dumped at IEL to share in the cleanup costs, he said.
U.S. agency watching
The U.S. EPA maintains oversight of the former landfill site and the groundwater monitoring.
In 2006, the agency released a five-year review that said the final remedy is working and contamination is decreasing. Nine toxic chemicals were found in the aquifer in late 2005.
Thurlow said the federal government purchased land around the former landfill in anticipation of putting on a cap that would have extended beyond the property lines.
That cap was never installed, he said, and the federally owned land on the north, west and south sides of the landfill soon will be transferred to the state.
Ohio could sell or donate the land, depending on the outcome of the landfill sale, said state EPA spokesman Larry Antonelli.
While operating from 1966 until 1980, the landfill accepted both household trash and toxic waste. It took in about 780,000 tons of solid and 1 million gallons of liquid wastes.
The original $32 million cleanup plan, signed in 1989, called for installing a synthetic-earthen cap, treating contaminated groundwater and expanding a system to collect and burn methane gas.
The plan was revised in March 2000 and called for a simpler synthetic-earthen cap, expanding the methane-venting system and letting the groundwater cleanse itself through natural processes.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Seeking new owner: A former Uniontown toxic-waste dump that is cleaner than it once was.
Get the full article here.
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