Superfund Site, But No Cleanup Necessary

By: Duane Craig
Perhaps in a case of the federal government bending over a bit too far at a state’s request, the Portland Harbor Oil Superfund site may not get a cleanup with federal dollars, according to this article. The reason is because after closer scrutiny, the pollution isn’t serious enough, and the local fish aren’t plentiful or old enough to warrant a cleanup.

An oil spill from storage tanks owned by Harbor Oil in 1974 was the first warning shot of a minor disaster unfolding. That incident killed the fish in Force Lake. Then, just five years later, a massive fire melted five oil storage tanks. Nearly 100,000 gallons of petroleum products spilled into the lake and fouled its wetlands.

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are the biggest threat to life at the 19-acre site with levels at 2,000 parts per billion. However, the current owner has paved over the contamination, effectively capping it to prevent precipitation from disbursing it. The lake’s sediment has been found to have PCBs at 80 parts per billion. The EPA believes the greatest threats to humans now lie with eating fish from the lake because PCBs are classed as bioaccumulative, meaning they concentrate in living tissue.

By: Duane Craig

Data supplied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its Toxic Release Inventory shows a 30 percent reduction in chemical releases to the environment since 2001. The agency, however, says the database provides only a snapshot of the pollution, that it doesn’t cover all toxic chemicals and that it doesn’t cover all sectors of the economy.

Perhaps more troubling, the quantities of chemicals being reported are provided by the companies that release them, and many times they are just estimates. This is a classic case of the foxes guarding the hen houses, and there is ample evidence, reported here and elsewhere, that the Toxic Release Inventory tells an unreliable story about the amount of chemical pollution being released by companies. In one example, a facility in New York State was releasing benzene into the environment at rates 30 times higher than reported to the TRI.

While the overall releases were estimated to be down nationwide, many regions, states and localities experienced increases in toxic releases. For example, according to this report, Oregon had a 20 percent increase in releases from 2009 through 2010. Illinois saw a 10 percent increase in the pounds of toxins released in that state from 2009 to 2010, according to this report.

Riddle, OR's Abandoned Formosa Mine Continues to Contaminate Water

August 29, 2010 - Three thousand feet above the city of Riddle is Silver Butte, a quiet mountaintop with panoramic views of Douglas County's vast forestland. The mountain is breathtaking. It's also home to one of the most contaminated sites in the nation — the abandoned Formosa Mine.

"If you walk in the water flowing out of the mine, the soles of your shoes will be mush," said Denise Baker-Kercher, the Environmental Protection Agency official in charge of the cleanup. "That's how acidic the mine drainage is."

When the mine closed in 1993, the operators failed to clean up the waste they left behind after extracting copper and zinc. For nearly two decades, rain and ground water have been absorbing the waste and flowing into Middle Creek at the base of Silver Butte.

The site produces each year five million gallons of acid drainage, containing up to 30,000 pounds of dissolved copper, zinc and other metals, according to an EPA study. The runoff has poisoned Middle and Cow creeks, killing all aquatic life along 18 miles of habitat.

"If the problem is left unattended, the contamination will eventually reach Riddle's city water source," Baker-Kercher said.

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Tigard contamination victims seek to change Oregon law

August 6, 2009 - As it stands now, Oregon Statute 465 does not give victims of soil or groundwater contamination the right to seek reimbursement for litigation costs if they prevail in court.

With the law the way it is, Debbie said, you’re victimized by the polluters – and “you’re basically just revictimized by the state.”

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Oregon neighborhood tested for cancer-causing contamination

January 17, 2008 - EUGENE - Another round of tests for a Eugene neighborhood believed to be polluted by an old train-yard.

From 2004 to 2006, air samples were taken from homes in the Trainsong area. The results showed crawl-spaces filled with high amounts of cancer-causing agents from tainted groundwater.

Precautionary measures were taken for those homeowners. Now comes the task of determining if those measures worked."

I didn't know there was a problem until last year," said Trainsong resident, Glenda Carroll.

Carroll lived in the Trainsong neighborhood with her husband for almost twenty years. She says he died last last January from kidney failure.

"They say kidney failure is one of the things that this causes. I can not tell you how many cats I've had that have died of kidney failure in this house," said Carroll.

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Oregon public health officials call for more tests of 11 homes

October 31, 2007 - The state Public Health Division has identified 11 homes in Eugene’s Trainsong neighborhood that may — or may not — be polluted by unhealthy levels of solvent fumes, according to a report released Tuesday.

Although the most recent tests of the air in homes show safe levels of solvents, earlier tests found an elevated cancer risk for people living in the homes.

The pollution plume underneath a large swath of the Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods in west Eugene came from decades of solvent spills at the current location of the Union Pacific rail yard.

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Portland third-most contaminated city

October 12, 2007 - Portland is the third-most contaminated city per capita in the United States, according to a new study from Milford, Conn.-based Environmental Data Resources.

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Plume under Oregon neighborhood carries threat of more cancer cases

August 13, 2007 - What's the real harm in the solvent plume under roughly 250 homes in the Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods?

The answer is theoretical and technical - a higher than usual cancer rate among a set number of people.

The state Department of Environmental Quality figures the concentrations are so low that the agency is only concerned about people facing chronic, long-term exposure.

The federally funded Superfund Health Investigation and Education program concluded that levels of solvent in private wells that dip into the plume are so low that it's fine to use the water for everything but drinking. But the investigators also declared - as a precaution - that the solvent vapors in the crawl spaces of some homes are a public health hazard.

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Oregon officials expand testing for toxic fumes rising into homes from contaminated groundwater

June 13, 2007 - The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced plans to expand a toxic fumes testing program to include 30 more residents in Eugene's Trainsong neighborhood.

The agency had earlier found fumes rising up in the crawl spaces of eight nearby homes from a hazardous industrial solvent in the groundwater.

Many members of the neighborhood wanted testing but dozens of nearby homes will remain untested. The DEQ said further testing could be warranted based on the results of the 30 homes.

The groundwater was fouled by a century of spills of industrial degreaser at the railyard along the northern boundary of the neighborhood. A broad plume of the contaminated groundwater persists under homes in the Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods.

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Contaminated wells in Oregon

June 4, 2007 - State water officials are making house calls to rural well users this spring as part of a plan to clean up groundwater contamination in the southern Willamette Valley.

Though a relative newcomer to the area, Marla McClean welcomed a checkup of her well water last week by Department of Environmental Quality hydrogeologist Audrey Eldridge and water sampling technician Michael Tichenor. McClean and her husband moved to their home on nearly an acre of land along Beacon Drive, north of Santa Clara, from Winnemucca, Nev., in late 2005.

"The water was so badly contaminated in some hot spots there that the water from some wells was undrinkable," she said. "Ours was not, but we still participated in the monitoring."

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Health Officials Offer Few Answers to Residents of Oregon Towns

May 18, 2007 - Tiny pieces of the pollution puzzle were all state health officials could offer to residents of the Trainsong, Bethel and River Road neighbor- hoods Thursday evening.

Health officials couldn't say whether any of the dozen polluted industrial sites ringing the neighborhoods are connected with ill health, whether the environment there is improving or worsening, or what was going on to explain the pattern of illness.

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Wells Contaminated with Arsenic in Sweet Home Oregon

April 17, 2007 - Public concerns about high levels of arsenic in well water have prompted a recent and continuing testing program in the area around Sweet Home, Ore., and may raise a warning flag for other areas of the state that could also face problems with this toxin due to geology or land use practices.

In a recent round of testing done near Sweet Home, almost one-fourth of the well water samples showed levels of arsenic now considered unsafe by EPA standards.

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