Part of an ongoing series
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are not working to do so. The U. S. Department of Health will update Iowa state regulators to oversee the expired cleanup of a Marengo asphalt shingle recycling plant that exploded last year.
The explosion and fire forced the city’s citizens to evacuate and left workers worried about the impact on their physical condition of unidentified and potentially poisonous chemicals.
EPA spokeswoman Shannan Beisser said Wednesday that company officials under its Superfund program will work with the plant’s operator and owner. Fire that firefighters throughout the region battled for 20 hours.
“EPA Region 7 will want any immediate threats to human health and the environment stabilized and will commit to characterizing any additional hazards at the site,” Beisser said in an email.
Experts told the Des Moines Registry that compared to state regulators, the EPA can inject more money into the cleanup procedure and a faster repair. Agency officials can also impose criminal consequences for any environmental violations through C6-Zero’s corporate executives.
Formerly: Iowa Sues Marengo Company Over Fire, Asks Court to Order Cleanup Cooperation
“The EPA is scarier than the state,” said Adam Babich, an environmental professor at Tulane University.
The acquisition follows an April 10 Notice of Infringement the EPA issued to C6-Zero for allegedly failing to provide local emergency services with a list of chemicals at the plant prior to the explosion. The news also comes as C6-Zero and its environmental cleanup contractor, EcoSource, are more than two months shy of the Feb. 17 court-imposed deadline to review and remove infected water and soil from the plant’s grounds.
The company is fighting battles on several fronts. The DNR rejected EcoSource’s request for an extension on April 10. At the same time, the branch blocked EcoSource’s attempt to plug the transport of soil to a local landfill, and the DNR found that the contractor had not tested the soil well for chemicals.
C6-Zero and the DNR are also discussing which organization deserves to remove infected water from a pond next to the plant. Meanwhile, Metro Waste Authority revoked a permit that would have allowed EcoSource to bring infected water to a Mitchellville landfill, with an MWA spokesperson saying the contractor first gave landfill officials an “incomplete characterization of the waste. “
“I don’t think anybody is comfortable with contaminants and what’s not there,” said Jim Olson, a specialist at the Iowa Waste Reduction Center who has been following C6-Zero’s cleanup efforts. “They didn’t do a proper job in assessing (land or water) either. “
C6-Zero spokesman Mark Corallo said the company welcomes the EPA’s takeover. Earlier this week, it said the DNR had “behaved arbitrarily, capriciously and obstructive towards C6-Zero”.
“Unlike our reports with IDNR, C6-Zero has had collaborative and cooperative dating with the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and EPA and, as a result, the cleanup of Marengo is nearing completion,” Corallo said. any assistance EPA may provide in the later stages of this process. “
Established in 1980, the Superfund program allows EPA to eliminate hazardous ingredient emergencies and abandoned and out-of-control poisonous sites. After reclaiming Marengo’s location for the DNR, EPA officials will evaluate the domain and create a score based on the severity of contaminants in the surrounding water and dirt.
EPA officials are placing the most severely affected spaces on their national precedence list. Twelve sites in Iowa are on the list, adding the former Dico plant south of downtown Des Moines, where workers made metal wheels and pesticides.
Don Elliott, an environmental law professor at Yale University and a former EPA attorney, said state agencies request assistance when a site is too confusing for their staff to handle.
According to C6-Zero’s written responses to EPA questions after the explosion, about 60,000 gallons of the petroleum product the company produced from shingles burned as a result of the explosion. The addition can cause brain damage. The paper also revealed that two of the chemicals in the aggregate, naphthalene and cumene, are “reasonably anticipated” to cause cancer.
The company’s solvent protection fact sheet did not disclose much information about the chemicals it contained. About 40% of the blend is Aromatic 200, a collection of various potential compounds that refineries capture by converting crude oil into fuel. The company described the remaining 60% of the mixture as a “proprietary solvent blend. “
The day after the explosion, according to a report created by EcoSource, water samples found benzene in concentrations above state standards. Several researchers have concluded that benzene exposure causes leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“(States) need more and more involvement from the federal government,” Elliott said of an EPA acquisition.
He added that states are also asking the EPA to wash its hands of political entanglements. In the months leading up to the explosion, C6-Zero hired Jeff Boeyink, an LS2 lobbyist and former leader of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, whose office sued C6-Zero in January for failing to meet cleanup deadlines, previously served as a suggestion for the LS2 group, according to a January 2022 Cedar Rapids Gazette article. A spokesman for Bird’s office did not respond. to several emails from the Register since early March, asking if Bird had recused himself from any involvement in the case.
Elliott said states are also applying for the EPA because the federal government has more money.
In February, DNR agreed to pay up to $834,000 to a contractor to remove water from a pond next to the plant. But the company tapped the federal budget allocated to the state through the American Rescue Plan Act, a COVID-19 relief bill. Otherwise, the MNR will pay for the cleanup of the fund through its hazardous waste fund, which as of June 2022 had a balance of $328,000.
“It’s a lot of money to do a cleanup,” Elliott said.
The EPA’s Superfund department, by contrast, reported about $18. 8 billion in assets at the end of September, adding an uncommitted balance of about $6. 2 billion. The federal government budgets the department with an annual allowance and fines imposed on businesses.
In November 2021, Congress also reinstated a special tax on chemical corporations in the Superfund division. Congress created the tax in 1980, but lawmakers legalized the tax to expire in 1995.
When states ask the EPA to interfere with infected sites, state agencies sign contracts agreeing to fund about 10% of cleanup costs.
Babich, a professor at Tulane University, said the EPA tends to be more competitive than state agencies in referring cases to prosecutors. He added that prosecutors are more interested in scammers’ fees when potential environmental violations result in death or serious injury.
During the Dec. 8 explosion, two C6-Zero personnel suffered severe burns. Marengo Police Chief Ben Gray said he remained in the burn unit at University of Iowa hospitals and clinics for “several weeks. “
“Frankly, they may just commit responsibilities as much as civilians,” Babich said. “It’s like a bigger hammer. “
Tyler Jett is an investigative reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact him on tjett@registermedia. com, 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett. Accepts encrypted messages on tjett@proton. me.