Evan Barrett celebrated Tuesday after learning he and other citizen watchdogs in Butte had scored a hard-won Superfund victory.
“It looks like the ‘dirty dirt train’ has been derailed,” Barrett said Wednesday.
The watchdogs, along with the state’s Natural Resource Damage Program and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, had raised concerns for more than a year about plans by Atlantic Richfield/BP to use slightly contaminated onsite material as fill in certain applications at federal Superfund units in the Silver Bow Creek Corridor.
On Tuesday, Atlantic Richfield/BP announced that even though it believes onsite material can be a key component of EPA remedies nationwide, the company will no longer advocate for its use in the Silver Bow Creek Corridor in Butte.
Barrett, who has taken some heat for his opposition to the use of onsite material, said he was elated about the new development.
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“It’s a validation for public involvement,” he said. “But it’s been a real battle. They were playing hardball.”
Atlantic Richfield/BP described the slightly contaminated fill as “onsite material.” Others referred to it as “grey material,” partly because debate about its use landed squarely in a grey area. Barrett and others in his camp referred to it as “dirty dirt” and wondered why EPA would support its use instead of insisting on full removal of such material in the Silver Bow Creek Corridor.
Among other things, Atlantic Richfield/BP had said the use of fill material already onsite could reduce the number of trips by haul trucks toting wastes to a repository or clean fill to excavated corridor sites.
An Atlantic Richfield/BP press release Tuesday reported the company “believes that removal of additional material will allow for simplified project design and increased schedule efficiency.”
For one thing, the removals will proceed more efficiently without having to sample the material for levels of contamination, the company acknowledged.
Josh Bryson of Atlantic Richfield/BP has said that wastes repository sites under consideration, including the Berkeley Pit, would have the capacity to receive additional materials not left behind as fill.
Last summer, KC Becker, EPA’s regional administrator, based in Colorado, issued a statement citing the potential benefits of using onsite material.
On Tuesday, EPA issued a news release in the wake of the Atlantic Richfield/BP announcement.
“EPA is appreciative of all of the community engagement that has taken place over the last year and we know this is an important issue to the community,” the agency said. “EPA supports Atlantic Richfield’s decision not to include use of onsite material as general fill in the implementation of the remedial work in corridor projects under the Consent Decree.”
The corridor projects include, among others, the Northside Tailings Area, East Buffalo Gulch and the Diggings East Area. Contaminants of concern include lead, cadmium, arsenic, copper and more.
Atlantic Richfield bears responsibility for cleanup under federal Superfund law because it acquired the original polluter, the Anaconda Company, in 1977.
Not everyone has raised a ruckus about the potential use of onsite material as fill. Some characterized the dirt dispute as being much ado about nothing.
David Williams, a member of the Citizens Technical Environmental Committee, once described the conflict as “foofaraw” – a word defined by one dictionary as meaning “a great deal of fuss or attention given to a minor matter.”
Barrett, a member of CTEC, caught flak from some fellow committee members for his stance about “dirty dirt,” seeing Barrett’s complaints as needless obstructionism.
On Wednesday, he guessed the average resident of Butte-Silver Bow County would advocate for a thorough cleanup instead of the alternative.
“We want it all clean,” Barrett said.
He said state officials with NRDP and DEQ helped raise issues that bolstered the concerns of citizen watchdogs.
On Wednesday, Doug Martin, acting program manager for NRDP, reacted to the announcement by Atlantic Richfield/BP.
“The state of Montana supports BP-Atlantic Richfield’s proposal and the implementation of the remedy consistent with the Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit Consent Decree,” Martin said.
Becker had said last year that material existing at a Superfund site in Butte would be sampled before being used as fill to ensure it did not exceed standards for contamination by toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and arsenic. They are among the metals deposited by historic mining and smelting in Butte.
“All onsite material identified as potentially suitable for general fill will undergo extensive sampling and analysis to confirm it meets all parameters and criteria before use,” Becker said then.
On Wednesday, J. P. Gallagher, chief executive for Butte-Silver Bow County, commented on Atlantic Richfield/BP’s announcement.
“The elimination of onsite material exceeding [contaminant thresholds] is a proactive and significant step towards achieving a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution for the community, and it shows responsiveness to community involvement in the process,” Gallagher said.
Becker had emphasized last summer that the goal of Superfund cleanup is to eliminate exposure to harmful levels of contaminants.
“Achieving this basic objective – in Butte and at the more than 1,300 Superfund priority sites across the nation – does not necessitate digging up every microgram of a metal or substance of concern and moving it to another location,” Becker wrote then.
For Barrett and others like him, cleaner is better. He said this was the message all along from him and fellow watchdogs to Atlantic Richfield/BP and EPA and said he was elated the public involvement had clearly communicated that preference.
“You need to do the right thing and we are not going to give up until it’s done,” he said.
