in the matter of: southwest center texarkana, texas ...i adsorption. following selection of that...

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

In the Matter of:PUBLIC HEARING ON KOPPERSTEXARKANA SITE

Southwest Center3222 West 7th StreetTexarkana, TexasWednesday,July 20, 1988

The above-entitled matter came on for publichearing, pursuant to notice, at 7 :00 p.m.

Qn_behalf_of the EPA:LARRY D. WEIGHTChief, Superfund EnforcementJIM PENDERGASTRemedial Project OfficerNADINE MCPHERSONCommunity RelationsQn_J3gha_l f P f_ the_ ATSDR :CARL HICKAMSenior Public Health AdvisorDR. KEN ORLOFF<3ft_beha_l£ of. Texas. Department of Health:DR. RICHARD BEAUCMAMP

Oft _ bejxalj_o£ the Texas Water Commission.'GREG TIPPLESJOE BROWNState Superfund Program

ON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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SPEAKERLarry D. WrightCarl HickamJim PendergastBarney AbneyPatricia GrayPatsy OliverEllee AbneyMattie WarrenRoy KooreRaymond ParkerRosie WallsBrenda KingShirley BradfordDon Preston

Beth Roy

REPRESENTINGEPA - IntroductionATSDREPAHimselfHerselfHerselfHerselfHerselfHimselfHimselfHerselfHerselfHerselfFriends United for aSafe EnvironmentHerself

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: MR. WRIGHT: Good evening. I would like to' welcome all of you to the Koppers Texarkana site publicmeeting. My name is Larry Wright, and I am chief of the

i| Superfund Enforcement Section with the Environmental

Protection Agency in Dallas.Ir With me on my right is Jim Pendergast. Jim isii the EPA regional project manager who is overseeing theIi; investigatory work that has been done at the Koppers site.IJ Nadine McPherson is with our community relationsi! staff back here at the door* She is assisting with thehandout of the materials and the sign-in tonight.

Ij Also we have with us tonight Mr. Carl Hickam andi| Dr. George Orloff. They are hare tonight representing theAgency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry , alsoknown as ATSDR.ii Dr. Richard Beauchamp is with the TexasDepartment of Health in Austin.

We also have two representatives of the TexasWater Commission with us, Mr. Greg Tipples, sitting backhere, and Mr. Jo© Brown, and they both work in the stateSuperfund program.

The purpose of the meeting tonight is to receivepublic comments on alternatives for addressing the currentsite conditions at the Koppers Texarkana site. The


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1 ; alternate solutions were evaluated in a feasibility study2 ; report that is available for review at a number of3 | locations here in Texarkana, and also at the Texas Water4 : Commission offices in Austin and our EPA offices in Dallas.5 ! Locally, those reports are available for review6 at the Texarkana Public Library, at the Texarkana City7 ! Hall, and the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, The

administrative record file, which includes all theinformation that EPA has considered to date concerning the

10 site, is available for review at the Texarkana Public11 Library-

12 EFA will accept written comments on the13 alternatives that have been discussed in the feasibility

i14 study, and we will accept those comments through July 30.15 We are receiving both oral comments and written comments

i16 | tonight. Written comments can be mailed to Nadinei17 McPherson at the address in our Dallas office that is

18 I listed in your handout.19 When you came in tonight, all of you should have20 received -- picked up one of these at the back table. That21 has information about the site. It also has the address22 where comments can b© sent.23 Everyone who signed in tonight will be put on24 the mailing list that we have developed for the site, and25 any future news releases concerning the site will be mailed


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1 ! to you.I\2 i We have some presentations to make regarding the3 i site, but following that, we will open up the program to

!4 i comments and questions both.iii5 | We are recording all of the comments that are6 made -- all the presentations and all the comments that are

i7 i made tonight/ and in order that our court reporter can8 adequately hear your comments and record them properly so9 they can be put in the transcript of the meeting, we would

10 ask that when you have a question or have a comment, you11 come up to the microphone up here.12 This microphone is not tied into the public13 address system, so you will have to speak up. But it is14 tied into the recording device that we have here so that we15 can accurately record all the comments and questions that16 are brought up during the course of the evening.17 We will prepare a transcript of the meeting, and18 we will also prepare a response to all the comments that19 are received during the public comment period, both those20 comments that are received tonight and written comments21 that are received through July 30. Everybody who makes a22 comment for the record will receive a copy of the response23 to comment document. Where possible, we will answer your24 questions here tonight.25 We will take all the comments that we receive


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1 during the course of the evening and throughout the public2 : comment period, and we will use those, then, to help us3 select the final remedial action that we will recommend for4 the Koppers Texarkana site.5 ' I v/ould like to talk briefly about the program6 ; that the work is being done under that is administered by7 j the Environmental Protection Agency. All this work is done8 j under a long name, the Comprehensive Environmental9 I Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, and that

t10 ' particular act was passed by Congress in October of '86 , is

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11 ! commonly called the Superfund, and it is administered byi

12 EPA.I

13 The Superfund law allows EPA to use a special

14 fund of money to conduct investigations and to respond to15 j releases of hazardous substances at sites that are placed

|16 ' on a National Priority List.17 ! Most of the money in the Superfund comes fromii18 ! taxes on the chemical industry. The rest of the money19 comes from the federal treasury. The fund is reimbursable,

l20 [ and the EPA can take legal action to recover costs that it21 spends from the fund.

i22 Those sites that are placed on the National23 Priority List, as 1 indicated earlier, become eligible for24 funding. There are currently about 1 ,200 sites on the25 National Priority List. This particular site was proposed


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7to the National Priority List in October of '84 , and wasfinalised on the National Priority List in June of 1986 .

If we could have somebody get the lights,please? Thank you.

Remedial actions at a Superfund site occur instages. Th© first stage we go through is an investigationof the site. We conduct a field investigation, which is

! also known as a remedial investigation, and the objectivei; is to determine the nature and extent of contamination at a: site,! During the remedial investigation, we sample] groundwater, surface water, soils, air, the waste materialij itself, and determine what impact the site may have on theenvironment and health. We try to determine where any

I! contaminants may have migrated, and we use that informationIi to go on into a feasibility study.

In the feasibility study, we look atalternatives for addressing site conditions, and weactually evaluate a range of alternatives that aredescribed in the regulations for Superfund. We arerequired by those regulations to look at a no actionalternative through very extensive treatment technologies,such as incineration or other types of treatment methods.

Some of the technologies that we evaluated orlooked at in the feasibility study are highlighted at the


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8back of the room on those posters that are there for yourperusal at the end of the mesting.

Once we complete th© public comment period,which we are in right now, the comments are part of theevaluation which the regional administrator will use tomake a decision as to the appropriate solution to the siteproblems* From that point, we are ready to proceed on tothe actual stages of design and construction.

One of the things we will be discussing tonightis the remedy that is favored by the region. In yourhandouts, you will notice there is a proposed plan listed.Currently, the regional staff at EPA in Dallas favors soilwashing of contaminated soils, and extraction and treatmentof contaminated groundwater, treatment using carbon

i adsorption.Following selection of that alternative plan by

j the regional administrator, a remedial design is started.IThe remedial design is the actual preparation ofengineering plans and specifications that are used to bidthe construction of the site. These are the plans andspecifications that will go to a contractor for bid.

The final phase is the actual implementation ofthat plan, or th© actual construction or cleanup. Post-cloaure monitoring is done after the work is completed onsite to ensure that the remedy that was constructed is


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effective, and to make sure that it is doing the job thatwe thought it would when we selected it after theconclusion o£ the public comment period.

; In order to conserve the Superfund, the lawii requires us to seek voluntary response by potentiallyIi responsible parties. These potentially responsible partiesii could be site owners or operators, and individuals who weii believe, under the law, are responsible for conditions ati! the site.ii1 In this particular case, for the KoppersTexarkana site, we notified two potentially responsibleparties at the outset of our investigation, and asked themto conduct the remedial investigation and feasibilitystudy.

In this particular case, the Koppers Companycame forward and signed an administrative order with theEnvironmental Protection Agency, under which they conductedthe remedial investigation and feasibility study. The EPAand Texas Water Commission conducted oversight of thoseactivities throughout the course of the investigation andthe feasibility study.

After we complete the selection of thealternative for cleanup of the site, we will again go backto potentially responsible parties to attempt to have themconduct the remedy that has been selected by the regional


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10administrator.

2 Any such agreement that we would reach would3 : have to be put into the form of a consent decree that would4 j be entered in U . S . District Court, and EPA and Texas Water5 • Commission would b© conducting an oversight of the work

I6 i that would be done by the parties.i7 That would include the oversight of the actual

i8 i remedial design, and oversight of the construction itself.

|9 i We would also be monitoring the activities over the long

10 | term to ensure that the remedy that was constructed wasIi11 | effective.i12 If we can't reach any kind of agreement with thef13 potentially responsible parties, then we have to look at14 other options. One option is to use the Superfund to15 actually pay for cleanup, using our own contractors; and16 after those funds are expended, attempt to recover thpi17 costs from the potentially responsible parties and put the18 money back into the Superfund account. Another option, if19 we can't reach a voluntary agreement, would be enforcement20 action.

i21 With that, I will go ahead and turn the pi'ogram22 over to Carl Hickam, who is going to talk a little bit23 about his agency's role in the Superfund program.24 Following that, Jim Pendergast will talk about the25 investigation we are conducting, and give you a little bit


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111 ' more detail about the feasibility study and the2 alternatives that we are seeking comment on tonight.3 MR* HICKAM: Thank you, Larry. Good evening.4 My name is Carl Hickam. I am a public health advisor with5 , the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. I ami6 currently assigned to the EPA regional office in Dallas.7 i The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease

Ii8 i Registry was establisned by Congress as a separate,9 independent health agency to assist EPA, states, and local

10 health and environmental agencies to broaden and increase11 | the knowledge bank of hazardous waste, toxic materials, to12 • health issues and health effects.13 ATSDR is a separate, independent agency of the

14 ; Department of Health and Human Services and the Public.15 Health Service. As you can see by the slide, ATSDR is on16 the sam© even keel as the Centers for Disease Control, the17 Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes1.8 I of Health.19 The agency was created in 1980. We really came

i20 I into being, for funding purposes, in 1986 . We have ati21 present approximately 200 staff. Our home office is in

22 Atlanta, Georgia. We do have representatives in each of23 the ten EPA regional offices around the country, to assist,24 again, with the Environmental Protection Agency, or states25 and local health and environmental agencies regarding

ON XHE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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12hazardous and toxic materials.1

2 Because we are a rather young agency, we do have3 a number of inter-agency agreements with a host of other4 health-related agencies, such as the Centers for Disease5 Control, the National Institutes of Environmental Health6 Services, FDA, and such* May I have the next slide,i7 please.8 Primarily, our role is to assist, again, as I9 say, the Environmental Protection Agency, states, and local

10 health and environmental agencies at Superfund and -- non-11 NPL sites and NPL sites, or Superfund sites and non-12 : Superfund sites.13 | Primarily, a health assessment is conducted

i14 ; looking at a comprehensive set of data that is provided by15 • either EPA, states, local health or local environmental16 agencies. We will also accept, obviously, data from17 private citizens, private physicians, and such for any

i18 ! particular site that has environmental health issues that19 need to be addressed,20 We take a suspected site. We look at the21 different types of hazardous materials that have beenI22 detected or analyzed for at that site. We try to23 determine, through pathways of exposure, how these24 contaminants might get to individuals to cause adverse25 health effects* May I have the next slide, please.


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i 131 If I might take Just a moment and explain to you2 the health assessment process, I want it to be very clear3 that we not only will look at EPA data, we will look at4 state, local citizen data, private physician data,ii5 ! whatever. From this, we gather data again on the two red6 boxes. That flows to us for a request for a health7 assessment, again, a health assessment being a

i8 ' comprehensive evaluation of a hazardous waste site.9 i We gather our findings based on toxicityI

10 ; research, toxicity profiles and research. From our healthi11 j assessment will come a variety of possible recommendations

i12 that should be implemented at that particular site.

j13 | We may offer a recommendation to perform a pilot14 health study. A pilot health study is looking at a small

I15 | number or a small group of people that might live adjacent16 to a site, and from those findings we may expand the17 investigation for a complete epidemiological investigation,18 which would encompass a larger part of that particular19 citizenry.20 We also are charged with possible21 recommendations that might come in establishing an exposure22 registry. This registry would b© established to follow23 peopla for a number of years to see what types of adverse24 health effects that they might develop as a result of25 exposure to hazardous materials.

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14We also possibly would make recommendations to

develop a health surveillance program, and this, inessence, is more of providing some type of health benefitsto people who might be affected or who might have adversehealth effects from hazardous waste or toxic wast©exposure. I think that is my last slide.

Again, I would like to Introduce Dr. Ken Orloff.i Dr. Orloff is a toxicologist with the Agency for ToxicSubstances and Disease Registry out of Atlanta, Georgia;and also Dr. Richard Beauchamp, again, who Is with the

! Texas Department of Health* We will be available during; the question and comment session to try to ansv/er anyiii questions that you might have. I thank you for your time.

MR. PENDER6AST: Good evening. 1 am Jim• Pendergast. I am the remedial project manager for theiij Koppers site. As Larry said, I am here tonight to discusswith you the findings of our studies, and what we proposeto do to clean the health-threatening contamination at thesite.

Now, most of what I am going to discuss tonightis in the fact sheet, also called the proposed plan/ whichyou may have picked up tonight, or you may have received inthe mail, or we may have delivered to you when w© wenthouse to house last month, or you might have picked up inthe library. If you haven't picked on© up for som© reason,


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15please -- we have got a number out at the door. Get one.

, It has all the information. Take it home with you, andlook over it,

I have a short presentation tonight, after which; the panel her© will answer any of the questions that youimay have, or gather the information and get it to you alittle bit later. Or if you wish, you can mail yourquestions to us, and we will answer those in our responsive

I summary in the record of decision.II Now, it is a little bit dim, but we will go withiiit. What I would first like to briefly touch upon tonightis a little bit of history of the site. This is theTexarkana Superfund site. The upper part of the slideshows Carver Terrace, with the houses that ar© there now,and the lower half of the slide shows where Kennedy Sandand Gravel is, which is right now an abandoned sand andgravel mine* Slide, please.

Now, the site didn't always look that way. Backin 1910, it was opened aa a wood preserving plant, andcontinued to b© so until 1961 . This is an aerial phototaken from back at that time, showing what the operationsare.

Part of the site had clean wood stored. Thatwas in the northeast corner, which is the upper right.Going from the center of the slide, going up to th© upper


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1 left-hand corner, starts the operations area with the drop2 tracks. This is where most of the site operations were3 taking place. And the rest of the sit© was used for4 treated and untreated wood storage. Slide, please.5 What we have dons here -- and this is the right6 way, putting north at the top -- we tried to superimpose7 the two previous slides, showing the houses and the8 existing area, and what the old operations area looked9 like.

10 This slide, if you want to take a look at it11 very closely, is in the library in the remedial12 investigation report. But generally, what we are trying to13 show in here is that most of the operations area runs in

i14 the area now known as West Third Street, and also up along15 Fannin Street. Slide, please.16 : Now, back in 1984, the Texas Department of WaterIi17 ! Resources, which is now called the Texas Water Commission,j18 ; referred the site to th© U .S . EPA. We tack a look at the19 j site by starting some initial sampling, and we found thatiii20 | there were some areas which we thought needed some actionii21 j taken right away.22 The Koppers Company agreed, after we contacted23 them, to put a temporary sod cover in a certain number of24 yards. What we have dona in here is highlight some of the25 yards which received the cover, most of which, again, are


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17along West Third Street, going up along parts of FanninStreet, going up and ending on Travis Street.

And once again, if you want to look at this invery close detail, it is in the remedial investigationreport which you will find in the library; or, if you wantto, I have a copy of it here, and we can, after the end ofthe meeting tonight, take a look at it closely. Slide,

: please*In 1985, EPA started the remedial investigation,

and if you remember from Larry's talk, this is the firststage of our site investigations. Once again, the KoppersCompany agreed to conduct the remedial investigation underEPA's supervision.

The Koppers Company sampled the air, the water,i the water sediments, soils, and groundwater. In thet' remedial investigation, we did investigate the site!

: history, wlr . % I touched upon, and then we look at areas ofii' waste sources and waste migration. Slide, please.iWhat we found in the site is we found evidences

of creosote contamination in soils. What I am showing hereis a slide -- a little bit out of focus, of course -- whichshows what some of you probably have seen in yards or asyou walk around the site. This is from Kennedy Sand andGravel. The black area in there shows creosote staining.Slide, pleas©.


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j 181 We found, primarily, evidences of creosote,2 pentachlorophenol, which is another chemical, and metal3 salts, which are things like arsenic, zinc, and chromium.4 ; Primarily, we found creosote. The pentachlorophenol and5 the metals were in small isolated areas.6 What we are trying to show her© is some of the7 areas where we found evidences of creosote, as measured byi8 I a compound we call polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, which9 is a mouthful, and so we call it PAHs for short.

i10 ! We found these in areas within the site. What I11 have shown here are areas that we found at a level called12 [ 100 parts per million. That means one part out of a13 million, is exactly what it means.14 We found it in areas pretty much around West15 Third Street, which is sort of that little oblong in the16 middle of the slide, moving up to the upper left-handii17 corner along, again, Fannin Street. That is the area we18 call the drip tracks. And we found some areas up there at19 the top towards Travis Street, and that is an area where20 the drip tracks ended,21 Now, what we found here is that the PAHs -- and22 PAHs are not one of those esoteric compounds that come out23 of a chemical tube or a laboratory, but PAHs are a natural24 compound which are found in things like wood smoke, cooked25 meats, and in the asphalt tars in the roads and the


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driveways that you might have.The concern of PAHs is not so much that they are

1 there, but in a question of how much is there. And that isi| one of the concerns that we have here. Our concernj primarily with PAHs is that they are -- some PAHa areI. suspected carcinogens.

That means that we do have some evidence thatthey can cause cancer in laboratory animals, and because ofthat we have concern as an agency that they might causetcancer in humans. Slide, please.

iWe also found evidences of creosote

iI contamination in groundwater, that is, the water that is inII the soils underneath the ground. Although most of this isIi underneath the ground, as you can see in this slide, wehave seen some places where the creosote -- and if you takea look at the feet of the person, you see this little black

! line that is moving out across the slide. That is an areaof what we call seep, where the creosote has come out ofthe groundwater and it seeping into Wagner Creek. Slide,plaase*

We also have found evidences of creosote seepingout into the water and gravel pits at Kennedy Sand andGravel. If you take a look at this, you can sea theunmistakable evidences of a sheen similar to what you mightsee, let's say, from oil and water. It is very similar


201 from here. Slide, please.2 We found the evidences of the creosote in3 groundwater pretty much as shown in this slide.4 Groundwater, of course, is underneath the ground. It is5 very hard to get at, so we had to drill a number of holes6 to find this out.7 What we found is that there is some sources of8 : creosote contamination within the aquifer for the9 : groundwater, at about ten feet below the ground, starting

10 from just north of West Third Street and moving to the11 | south. Most of the contamination is underneath the areai12 | that we call Kennedy Sand and Gravel.13 • This contamination -- or, I am sorry, the14 j concentrations of the contaminants within the groundwater

t15 j is now moving to the south. It is also moving downward,16 because some of the parts of creosote are heavier than17 | water, and therefore they sink.18 | The downward movement has gone into an area that19 w© call -- and you may have seen this in the remedial20 investigation -- a leaking confining zone, which is a21 geologist term for soils that aren't really sand. It is a22 mixture of sand and clays. We haven't seen it gone any23 deeper than that, so generally we ar© seeing contamination24 going down about 20, 25 f©et.25 If you notice, the sit©, or the boundaries of

ON THE RECORD REPORTINGj (512)450-0342

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211 th© groundwater contamination, follows the boundaries of2 the site. And the reason for this is that Wagner Creek on3 the west, which is the left, and a drainage ditch on the4 east, which is the right, intercept the groundwater, and5 the water from there will go into that ditch and into that6 creek. Slide, please.7 Okay. From the results of the site8 investigation, we are move into the next part of the9 remedial investigation and feasibility study, which we call

10 the endangerment assessment. Mow, an endangerment11 assessment would take a look at the possible health

i12 implications from the contaminants that we found on the13 ! site.

i14 And as I said to you before, our concern about

i15 | PAHs is that it is a suspected human carcinogen, and somei16 of the other metals are suspected to cause some health17 ; aspects or some health impacts in humans. Slide, please.i18 i What we look at in an endangerment assessment

|19 ' are the various ways in which a human -- which means the20 people living on site, or people who visit ths sit© -- may21 come in contact with the contaminants, and may become22 exposed to the contaminants* And in general, ther© are23 three ways in which a person could come into contact or be24 exposed, and that iB the air, the water, and the soil.25 We sampled all thre© in the remedial

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221 investigation, and what we found is we found no detectable2 site contaminants within the air. Now, that doesn't mean3 that you may not be able to smell evidences of creosote;4 what it means is that the contaminants that we try to look5 at at levels which could be affecting your health just!6 aren't there. They are below those levels,7 ; We also looked at water, And back in 1985, when

i8 we did that initial sod covering, we sampled peoples'9 drinking water, and what we were looking for in there is

10 evidences of the contamination moving into drinking water.11 We didn't find any, and we didn't really expect12 | to find any, because the engineering of the drinking wateri13 ; system is that the water comes in under pressure. That is14 ; why, when we turn on the tap, the water comes out. What15 ; that means is that if there is a leak in your water pipeI16 i underground, the water goes out; contamination does not17 come in.

i18 We also looked at the possible contact of people19 to groundwater, as groundwater could be a drinking source.20 We sampled the wells that are in the area, and we didn't21 find contamination. Now, that doesn't mean that if someone22 drilled a well in through that contaminated area, that they23 may not pick up some water that would have contaminants in24 there.25 What it means is, right now, that there isn't


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1 ! any. But our concern, of course, is that if someone did2 want to put a well in that area, they would go through the3 contaminated area, and they could become exposed.4 Our greatest concern, of course, is with the5 ! contaminated soil, because that is what is in many of your

i6 yards. Our concern h^re is that -~ is primarily with

i7 ! children. Children, through playing in the yards, can comeii8 ; in contact with soils. You know children put things in

i9 their mouths, and therefore the soil gets in their mouth.10 Also, contaminants could come through the skin, although at

I11 'a lower level. And those are our concerns that we have.I12 j To a lesser degree, the concerns are also with

i13 adults, because a number of you, of course, mow your yard;14 you may garden; and you may come into contact with the

i15 i contaminated soils.Ii16 ; So because of the soils, primarily, and also17 : because of the groundwater, we thought that there is enoughii18 concern about health to take some action on th*s site.

j19 Slide, please.20 What we did, then, is we looked at a feasibility21 study. And in a feasibility study, we look at different22 ways for remediating a site. Remediating is another one of23 those mouthful words which means looking at cleaning up24 health-threatening contamination.25 We looked at different ways of remediating. We


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24looked at different technologies for doing so. We screenedthem, based upon whether they will work, and other aspectswe will talk about, and then came up with a proposed plan.Slide, please.

, One of the first things we do in a feasibilityj study, and as we always do in every EPA Superfund site, is|| we look at something called a no action alternative. Ho; action means exactly what it sounds like, take no action.! We do this because we have to have something to compare to.In this case, if we tak© some action, what would happencompared to if we -.idn't?

If we went with the no action alternative, itwould be, at this site, a number of things. It would be,one, maintaining the fence around Kennedy Sand and Gravel;two, monitoring to ensure that the contaminants are notprogressing any further -- that is, that the sod barrier isnot decaying, contamination isn't going into thegroundwater further out. That is probably about as much asyou can ever say about the no action alternative. Slide,please.

We looked at seven soil alternatives. Now, ifyou were here in June, we ran through a number of these.W© were here at the library; you might have seen ourposters. And I am going to run through these again- Theseare the same slides that you might have seen from the


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251 posters.2 The first soil action alternative we look at is3 called capping, which means put a barrier, physical4 barrier, between the contaminated soil and th© people.5 There are many different types of caps that can be used,6 but th© most logical in this site, when you are talking7 j about peoples' yards, is not to put something like five8 < feet high, which is going to preclude people from going out9 in their yard.

10 : Instead, it is talking about something that is11 about a total of one foot that would assure a physical12 barrier that would not erode, and that would allow the13 grass to grow. A cap could be put in on the yards in the14 site that need to have a cap put in in about one year.15 Slide, please.16 • The next alternative we looked at is one called17 j in-situ biodegradation. In-situ is a Latin word that means

i18 in place, and that means that th© treatment occurs in the19 ! yard without really disturbing the yards.20 Now, what happens here is that water,21 nutrients -- think of it as fertilizer -- and oxygen are22 added to th© soil to encourage the natural bacteria in the23 soil to break down th© PAHs. Now, this occurs naturally24 without any of this going on, but the concern here is to25 try to speed that up, to make it work as fast as it can.

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; 261 ; The water would go in through either an2 infiltration ditch or through a sprinkler system* Our3 thought her© would be that a sprinkler system would make4 more sens©. The water would percolate through the soils.5 The bacteria, then, would degrade the PAHs, and any of the6 products from the PAHs would be washed down into the7 groundwater, and we would take care of that in a8 j groundwater remedy which we will talk about a little bit9 ; later.

10 I Th© important aspects about this remedy we need11 to keep in mind is that since it is natural and occurs in12 place, it can take a long time for this to run to13 completion. There is no way that anyone can get up here14 right now and tell you how long it could take exactly. Our

I15 guess is somewhere between five to ten years.|

16 During this period of time, of course, the water17 and the nutrients would have to be added onto the soil, and18 the way that we structure this thing, other things would19 happen, such as a landscaping company would be doing this20 work for you, even to the tune, if necessary, of mowing the21 grass. Next slide, please.22 Our third and fourth alternatives are soil23 washing. Now, there are two different types of soil24 washing, one which we have called mechanical and the other25 on© which we have called passive. But they actually work


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27in pretty much the same way.

In soil washing, water with surfactants areadded to the soils to try to wash the contaminants off ofthem. This is somewhat analogous to washing dirt off ofclothes. You add detergent to help take the soils off*

What we would do here is we would excavate thesoils that have the health-threatening contamination out of

i peoples' yards, and we would replace that soil with clean' dirt that comes from off the site, and we would also putIi the yards back in.

The contaminated soils, then, would be taken toKennedy Sand and Gravel, which is a nice accessible areawhich is part of the site, and we would wash thecontaminants off of the soils there. We could do this inabout one to two years*

Mechanical soil washing and the passive soili washing refers to th© method of which we wash the soil.Mechanical means we put the soils into a machine which isconstructed at Kennedy Sand and Gravel and we wash thesoils there.

Passive soil washing is a little bit innovative,which we would have to test out if we tried to use it. Andwhat that would be is to put the soils back into thegroundwater, which means at the pits at Kennedy Sand andGravel -- those pits, if you remember the slide that showed

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28the scene, are open to the groundwater right now -- add thesurfactants, that is, the detergents, to the soils in thosepits, and wash the contaminants off in there.

Although the soils would be gotten out of youryards within about one to two yeara, it would take a littlebit longer to clean the soils in Kennedy Sand and Gravel ifyou use passive soil washing. Next slide, please.

The next alternative is something called on-siteincineration. Now, incineration means burn, and that isexactly what it is* The soils would be excavated fromyards, in the same way that I talked about previously aboutthe soil washing, only this time when they were taken toKennedy Sand and Gravel, we would construct an incineratorthere, or we would pull a mobile incinerator in, one thatis on wheels, which is -- this one shows wheels. And wewould burn the soils there.i

1 And what burning the soils does is it burns1 organics. The PAHs are organics, natural compounds. Iti, would destroy those and turn it into carbon, which is --carbon dioxide, what w© breathe out-

Oxide incineration would take about one year todo, and most of that would b© in terms of excavation. Thething that you would have to keep in mind in terms abouton-site incineration is that, from incineration, when youburn something, that means that thera is going to be some


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smoke in the air.i And that means that you would have some sort ofii concern about possible transfer of contaminants from soilsi to air. One of the things we do with incineration is that\ we operate the incinerator so that we get as near completej' destruction of organics as possible, and we do monitor theair to make sure that we do not transfer the risk ofcontact from soil to air. Next slide, please.

The next alternative is off-site incineration,which is very similar to on-site. The only difference is

•*-hat the burning, actual burning, occurs someplace far awayfrom the site.

And what we do here is excavate the soils andtake it to an existing hazardous waste incinerator. Thenearest one that we can find that has a chance of burningthe soil is located in Deer Park, Texas, which is justoutside of Houston.

The difference, practical difference to you,other than having the incineration occur far away, is thatit might take about four to five years for the soils to beexcavated and taken away. The difference here is in termsof how the soils have to be packaged for transportation tothe incinerator.

Instead of taking things out in dump trucks,they want to have it in 20- or 30-gallon plastic barrels,


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30and it just takes a little bit longer to fill those -- ycuhave to do it by hand, more or less -- than it would be fora dump truck, which you could use a backhoe or anotherpiece of machinery* Next, please.

The last alternative we look at for soils iscalled landfill, and in this case it would be off-site*What we would do here is again we would excavate the soils,iIi replace it with clean soil in the yards.

iWe would take the dirty soils this time to an

! existing hazardous waste landfill. The nearest one toTexarkana is located in Carlyss, Lousiana, which is justoutside of Lake Charles, but we don't know which one wecould take it to right now. In this case, the soils,

again, are picked up and trucked off site. It would takeabout one year to do this. Slide, please*

After the -- other than soil alternatives, wehave groundwater alternatives. Remember back to theremedial investigation, we did find contamination, ormeasurable contaminants, in the groundwater.

There are three things you can do aboutgroundwater treatment that we find in the site. One isthat you can leave it, xtfhich is a no action alternative.The second one is you can extract the groundwater and treatit, and treat it in this case by activated carbon, which isa filtration unit; or you can extract the groundwater and

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31! treat it with a biological treatment unit. And that means2 allow bacteria within a tank to naturally degrade the3 organic contamination.4 The extraction of the ground water appears the5 course of greatest interest to most of your people here,6 because that is the thing that is going to take the longest7 • to do.8 ; We are looking at putting a series of trenches

|9 | throughout Kennedy Sand and Gravel where most of thei10 contamination is, and allow tha Contaminants to move into11 | those trenches so that w© can collect it; pump it to ai12 groundwater trertment station that we would build on13 ; Kennedy Sand and Gravel, most likely down at the southeast

I14 | corner -- that is down by Jameson Street; clean it there;II15 f take the clean water, put it back into the groundwater.I16 , And there is an engineering reason for doing it,17 because you want to get the cycle going. You pull water18 out, you clean it, you put it back; because if you put it19 back, it forces the water, the dirty water, into those20 trenches faster,21 Another principle that comes on h&re is that youi22 can always take more water out of the ground than you can23 put back in. And if there is any excess water, as we24 expect that there should be, that treated water, clean25 water, would then ba discharged into Wagner Creek.

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32One of the things we look at here is the

i possibility of also extracting groundwater frcm the vacantblocks on the north side of West Third Street, and that isthe northernmost extent of the groundwater contamination.

The reason why we need to look at it, and look! at it very carefully, is that the contamination in thegroundwater, ths creosote, is hard to get out. We don'tii; know exactly how long it is going to take to get out.

And the reason we don't know is that creosote isnot found tn water. It is not something like dissolving

j salt in water. What it is is like putting oil in water.i

, It is a little bit separate, which means that it is harder! to get out.| The fraction that is really hard to get out isi the part of the creosote that sinks to ths bottom. As ananalogy, it is like trying to move a bowling ball byshooting at it with a hose of water. The water is going togo faster than the bowling ball, and eventually ths bowlingball will move.i

i Another reason why it takes so long to get outis that the operation at the wood preserving plant went onfor about 50 years. We don't know when the contaminants,in the past, started going in the groundwater table. Itcould have started going back to 1910. And if you justimagine, if it takes 50 years to put something in, it is

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331 going to take a good amount of t;.me to pull it back out.2 Okay. Slide, please,3 What we do with all these alternatives at EPA is4 we take a look at them and try to look at different5 criteria by which we can judge them. Congress passed a6 i law, or an amendment to, the Superfund bill of 1986, and it7 i is called tha Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act,i6 ; or SARA, for short. And what SARA does is gives us some

f9 ! guidelines by which EPA knows how to look at remedies. And

r10 i I am going to try to discuss some of these guidelines withi11 ; you.I

12 i One thing that the new act requires us to do is13 to have compliance with laws. And what that means is, if14 you have hazardous waste at a Superfund site, you have to

I15 • handle it in the same way as if it was a hazardous waste at16 [ a chemical company. You have to follow the same laws.17 j Tha second thing that we look at is to reduce

i18 ' toxicity volume and mobility, and that is very self-19 evident. We need to reduce the contamination out there, to20 j keep it from being as toxic, reduce the amount of volume

i21 that is out there, and keep it from moving, if we can.22 We have to look at something called short-term23 effectiveness. And what short-term effectiveness maans is24 how fast does this remedy protect human health? How fast25 does it prevent further contamination of the environment?


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341 And also, are there any health risks associated with2 cleaning up the site?3 And if you think about this, right now, for some4 of you people who may have that clean sod on top of your5 yard, you don't come into contact with the contamination.6 If we dig that up, during the time in which we pull it out

i7 ; and up to the time that we put the clean dirt back, there8 : is a time in which there is contaminated soils out in your

*9 [ yard, and there is a potential for you being exposed to

10 that,11 I The third thing we look at is long-term12 ; effectivoness, and that m©ans, how can w© be sura that how

i13 we handle this waste is going to work so that our14 grandchildren aren't going to be exposed to this. That is

ii15 | very important, and one of the things that Congress told us16 ! to look very carefully at* They want us to look at long-17 tsrm, permanent remedies.18 ! Another issue that we look at is somethingt19 i called implementability, and that is another on© of those20 i tongue-twister words that means, will it work? Slide,21 I please,22 | Another issue that we look at is cost, and w©23 don't look at cost in terms of what is cheapest. What we24 look at is that, if we have alternatives that are equally25 | protective and equally effective -- that means they both do


r 351 ; the same good job at protecting health -- then we will look2 : at which one is the cheaper o£ the two. It doesn't mean3 '. that because of cost purposes, we are always going to take4 no action, because that is just not right.5 ; The next thing we look at is community6 acceptance, and that: is why we are here tonight. We are7 ; here to present what we round. We have written up a fact8 sheet to let you know what we found. We want to hear your9 views, both pro and con, about what is going on at the site

10 and what EPA proposes to do.11 [ The next issue we have is state acceptance, and12 it is very similar to community acceptance. The state13 : takes the same role as you all do. They look at what we14 ! have done, and they look at it in terms of what they think15 i is best, what they see is best for the citizens of the

!16 state.17 ; One of the things that they do is they also take

i18 ! a look at something we call the administrative record. The19 j administrative record, as Larry mentioned, is this mass of20 information that EPA has looked at and has considered in21 terms of coming up with a proposed plan.22 This administrative record is available for you23 all to look at at the public library, and it will at&y24 there at th© library. It is not going to be there just for25 another week. It is going to be there for a good time. If


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you are not from Texarkana, we also have a copy o£ the. record at the EPA regional offices in Dallas * I encourage! you, if you have the chanes, to go down and take a look atth© administrative record,

j The last thing we look at -- and It Is not theii last because it is the least; it is the last because it is| the most Important -- Is that we have to make sure that the' remedies protect human health and the environment. And|; that is as clear-cut as you can get. Slide, please*i Now, what we have looked at at EPA is we havei! looked at all these alternatives, and we have come up withiwhat we see as the best plan for cleaning the health-threatening contamination site, based upon the criteria

! protectiveness, effectiveness, Implementability, complyingwith laws, and things like that.i

i And what we propose to do is what we call soil| washing -- that is, excavating the soils out of people*?'iyards, replacing it with clean soil, and taking the soilwith contaminants to Kennedy Sand and Gravel, and washingthe contaminants out of them there. Slide, please.

Now, as an alternate solution, the KoppersCompany, which has spent a lot of time working on theremedial Investigation and the feasibility study for us,has asked that we also look carefully at in-situbiodegradation, which would be, if you remember back to


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37about ten minutes ago, encouraging the bacteria in the soilto destroy the contaminants there*

In conjunction with both of these, there wouldbe groundwater remedy. That means extract the grc-undwaterand treat it, either using activated carbon, which we thinkwould be best, or we might even use the biologicaltreatment. The differences between the two are very small,but equally effective, and they are very similar in cost.And that would also go on at the same time.

What I would like to do now -- slide, please --is to go back through the nine criteria we have and discussthese alternatives in terms of how we look at them and whywe think that these are best.

In terms of looking at consistency with laws, atthe time which we developed the proposed plan, we believedthat the alternatives -- the soil washing, thebiodegradation, and the groundwater recovery -- wouldcomply with all existing laws. And we still believe so.

That means that if this was a chemical companythat was going to handle it under a different law anddifferent EPA regulations, we could handle it in the sameway.

Something new which has come up, and somethingwe will be looking at carefully, is that EPA is always inthe process of making new regulations. That means


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381 interpreting the laws, trying to expand the laws to be more2 protective. If we come up with a new regulation that might3 preclude using one of these alternatives, we might have to4 do something about it, like changing our minds.5 ; The second thing we look at in terms of the

I6 ; reduction of toxicity, mobility, and volume -- all three/i7 : alternatives will reduce the toxicity by destroying the

i8 contamination, either biologically, through the in~situ9 biodegradation, or by removing it from the soil and putting

10 ; it in the groundwater, which then would destroy thei11 . contamination. And so we feel that we could do a good job12 ; there.i13 Short-term effectiveness is something that is of14 prime concern, and there are some tradeoffs in here betweeni15 the alternatives. If you remember what we talked about,16 short-term effectiveness talks about the time of cleaning17 I up, and also health aspects or health risks during the time18 of remediation.19 Soil washing would get the contamination out of20 peoples' yards within one to two years, which is pretty21 quick. However, during that time in which soil is taken22 out of the yard, and the way we look at it, we would only23 take out as much soil in one day as we can cover back over24 with clean fill that very same day.25 But during that period of time, residents of


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j 39! that house could be exposed to contaminated dust; or i£i} someone has a high sensitivity to household dust -~ andsome of you may dust your house wearing a pollen maskbecause of that -- there could be some irritation and someI

; concerns there.On the other hand, the biodegradatian would have

an advantage in that the soils wouldn't be disturbed, soyou wouldn't have that problem of worrying about exposure,because we are not digging in the soils.

On th© other hand, though, biodegradation wouldtake five to ten years, so you can see that you are tradingoff a potential exposure against the long period of time ofwaiting for the cleanup to occur.

And then with the groundwater alternative,fortunately, there shouldn't be too much exposure duringthe time in which we construct the alternative, becausemost of the actual digging will go on at Kennedy Sand andGravel. And if you remember, we have that fence, withbarbed wire on top, around to try to keep people out ofthere. It is a little bit removed from the houses.

It will, though, take a long time to clean upthe groundwater. Unfortunately, there is nothing much wecan do more about that, because that is a physicalconstraint of pulling things like creosote out of thegroundwater. Thare is just no faster way of doing it.]


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40We looked at long-term effectiveness and

permanence* What we are looking at are destruction ofcontaminants. That means that, by destroying them, theyare not going to come back. And that is one of the fearsthat some other alternatives would have, such as, forexample, a cap. That doesn't get rid of the contaminants;if the cap goes, for some reason, someone comes in andtears out the yard, you have still got the contaminationthere. The soil washing, the biodegradation, and thegroundwater recovery talks about permanently destroying

! contaminants*Implementability is something we look carefully

at. We know that mechanical soil washing can work,although we would have to do some pilot testing. Pilot

testing means trying it out in a small scale to try tofine-tune the operation, make it work the best it can.

We would have to do the same thing withbiodegradation, because biodegradation is something thatoccurs different from site to site, and therefore we haveto test it out before we try it.

The groundwater recovery, we are pretty surethat is going to work, we know that the treatment works;it has worked in different places and different areas. Andwe know that if you dig a trench, that the contaminatedground water will get to there. Slide, please.


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41Cost -- we take a look at the cost of the

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alternatives. There is very little difference in costbetween soil washing and in-situ biodegradation. They arevery close. The difference in there is about $100,000 to$200,000, which is less than a 10 percent differencebetween the two. And if you ask anyone who has costed out

I things, including like building a house, if you can getwithin 10 percent, you are very close.

On the groundwater alternatives, the twoalternatives, again, are very close. There is very littledifference between them. And so it makes no differencewhether you treat it with activated carbon or a biologicalunit.

Community acceptance -- again, that is why weare here tonight. We want to hear your views. We heardsome of them in June. We would like to hear them again,and if you feel like you want to, and we also encourage it,please send us a letter. Tell us what your views are onthis 4

And state acceptance, we have discussed thiswith the Texas Water Commission to get their initial viewsand to see if they see something in her© that could presenta problem. They haven't so far, and that is one of thereasons why we feel comfortable in terms of coming out andpresenting to you, you residents, so that you can talk to


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421 us about what you think,2 i As one of the requirements of all Superfund3 actions, the state is asked to send us a letter and tell us4 whether they agree or disagree with the remedy. They will5 be doing so after they have reviewed the transcript from6 this hearing, and after they hear any comments that you may7 i want to send to them.8 And lastly, protect human health and the9 environment -- because the remedial measures that we have

10 looked at will permanently destroy contamination, we don't11 ; have to worry, like I say again, about these contaminants12 ! roming back and presenting problems to you in the future.13 ; We can remove the contaminants so that the risks to you

i14 j will be small.

15 I We can reduce the contaminants from all ouri

16 | alternatives so that the threat of these contaminantsi17 j moving, again, back into the groundwater and going furtheri

18 out and giving the problem to someone, let's say, down19 Wagner Creek will be small.20 Okay. This is pretty much the end of th©21 prepared presentation. EPA will be reviewing the22 information in the administrative record, again, and any23 information that you want to send to us, or other federal24 agencies or other state agencies will send to us, and from25 this information we will decide the best means for cleaning


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431 the health-threatening contamination.2 This decision that we will make will be3 described in s document called a record of decision. This4 is an official agency document, and we expect to make the5 decision some time in September.6 • Following the decision, w© will design the7 remedy and test parts of it to find the optimum way to

i8 f operate the remedy. Design and testing will take about one9 year, and so during that year -- let's see, a year from

10 this September -- you might expect a little bit of activity11 cut there at Kennedy Sand and Gravel as we test our plans.12 Construction of the soil and groundwater13 remediation will take about another two years to complete,

i14 and after that the remediation actually will start, and15 will run until the contaminants ar© reduced below h©alth-16 threatening levels.17 Now, either EPA will do this or one of the18 responsible parties under EPA' s supervision will do this,

i19 and that means design, build, and operate the remediation.20 i We don't know now exactly which way this is going to occur.21 I After we sign the record of decision, we allow responsible

i22 ; parties 60 days to volunteer to clean up the site, and ifi23 they do so, another 60 daya aftsr that to work out the24 agreement, the legal agreement that Larry talked about, and25 how they will take this action.

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441 So 60 days after we sign the remedial — I am2 sorry, the record of decision, at that time we will have an3 idea on how — or who, I should say — will be doing the4 site remediation.5 In closing, we all here thank you for coming6 tonight, Again, we are in the middle of the public comment7 period. This comment period runs to July 30; it will close8 at the end of the month. After we finish talking, we will9 ; have a question and answer period where you may offer a

10 comment or ask a question. We will answer it to the best11 that we can.12 And plsase, either tonight or by letter, tsll us13 what you feel about what is going on, and what you like or14 dislike about our plan or study. Thank you.i15 MR, WEIGHT: We will open up the floor, now, toi

16 questions and comments. As I mentioned earlier, we would17 i appreciate it if you would come up to the podium and18 ! identify yourself. And if you have a particular19 : affiliation, identify that for us, also, pleas®. And wep20 j will respond to those questions that we can answer, and we

i21 ; will accept any comments, and they will be put into the22 | transcript and the public record of the meeting.23 So at this time, anybody who wiahas to maka a24 statement or ask a question or has a comment, pleas© step25 up to the podium.

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45MR. ABNEY: My name is Barry Abney, and I am a

former resident of 325 Hilam Street, where my mother gtillresides.

I notice that you said in one of the two plansyou were suggesting, one of them was soil washing and theother one the biodegradable thing. Was incineration -- whywas incineration counted out, since it seems to be — ifyou take the soil up and buzn it, it seems to be apermanent and a quick one. I bsliave the time period yousaid was about one year?

MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. The difference betweenincineration and soil washing is actually & difference incost. Both alternatives, soil washing and incineration,will remove contaminated soils within about one year from

i peoples' yards. So In terms of ths short-term, effectiveness, in terms of removing it from peoples' yards,it occurs at the same time.

The only difference is how, then, are thejj contaminants removed from the soils once we bring them inI| to Kennedy Sand and Gravel. The treatment occurs prettymuch the same way: That is, we can remove tha contaminantsfrom the r./ila to levels below health-threatening levels.

So in terms of protecting human l±fs, in termsof having a permanent remedy, they both work the same way.If you remember when I talked about cost, that cost only

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461 comes into play when we have things that are equally2 protective, and since we have the same type of removal in3 terms of taking contaminants out of the yards, the same4 protection of people, and we have th4 reduction of the5 i contaminants by both methods to levels below threatening --6 I am sorry, levels threatening to health, then the only7 difference between the two becomes cost.8 And the difference in cost there is the reason9 why we chose to go with soil washing rather than with

10 incineration,11 MR. ASNEY: Okay. On the soil washing, you said12 that you proposed two methods, and you sort of implied in13 your talking before that you were thinking of a mechanical14 method. You said something about mechanical and passive.15 Okay. I don't recall you specifically saying16 *^* soil washing method that EPA was proposing, which you17 ware indicating, mechanical or passive, and so forth, at18 the pit,19 , MR, PENDERGAST: Okay. The difference betweeni20 : mechanical and passive is, again, in the way in which the

I21 [ contaminants are physically removed from the soil -- thatI

22 I is, after they are excavated from the yards.23 Wa don't knorf enough about passive soil washing24 to know if it will b@ effective* If w© go with soil25 washing, we have to test out both ways. We know that


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471 mechanical soil washing will work, but we also feel an2 ; obligation to check the passive soil washing. The3 difference between those two, again, would be in terms of4 cost more than anything else.5 MR. ABNEY: Okay. On the biodegradable, youi6 also said something about a pilot time, a time when you

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7 Just have to more or less kind of test field and fine-tune8 the situation so that you will know wh<>t happens. What9 length of time are we talking about here, if you go that

:0 route?Li MR. PENDERGAST: We are talking about a year ofL2 pilot test. Now, some of the pilot testa can see a goodL3 . amount of degradation in the first two months. But we feeli14 that the total amount of time to test this thing out will15 | take about a year to make sur© that w© get good, hard data,IL6 to know that it will work. And we want to have that dataL? before w© commit ourselves to going that way.

i'8 MR. ABNEY: Okay, One© again back to the soil.9 : washing, it seems to m© a more practical way, because you

i10 I are going to b© getting rid of th© contaminants at a much11 [ faster rate than the biodegradable way.

t12 j MR- PENDERGAST: That is one of the good aspects

of it, and that is why we wanted to present it in thatlight to residents, or, in your easa, former residents, butstill someone who has a concern at the site.


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Because to us, the differences between thealternatives are social differences. There is not adifference in engineering; it is a difference whether -- tothe people who live on the site, whether they want to tradeoff the time to get the health-threatening contaminationeither destroyed or removed, versus possible exposureduring the time of removal.

1 And that is a decision that the agency can't, make without community input. That is why we are glad thatyou make that input.

i1 MR. ABNEY: Okay. Let me ask you one other

; question. So far as -- like if the soil washing method was| used, and a sample of soil was taken from this site and,iI say, just outside this site, are you saying that the soil; washing method would more or less put those on the same

i kilter, so far as measuring for those contaminants? Ii mean - - d o you understand what I am saying?

MR. PENDERGAST: What you are trying to say is:

i how well will the soil washing work.[ MR. ABN'EY: All right.ij MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. You remember back to theslide about half an hour ago, in terms of the contaminatedPAHs. Most of those are in Carver Terrace, in aresidential neighborhood. The contamination in KennedySand and Gravel is less so.

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491 What we are talking about is cleaning it to the2 j levels of Kennedy Sand and Gravel. And the reason why we

i3 ! look at that is that if you know that, in Carver Terrace,4 j that people come into contact with the soils because it is5 their yard.6 But Kennedy Sand and Gravel, it is not a7 residential area. It is a commercial area. So the

i8 j frequency in which people come into contact with that is

!9 less. And that makes some sense.10 This of it that you might spend your entire life11 in your yard, which will run over 70 years. But someone12 works -- they work at a job, they are going to work for

13 about 20 to 25 years.14 And the difference between 25 years and 70 years15 means that what is protective of health in a residential

i16 neighborhood, of course, has to be moro stringent than what17 would b© in a commercial neighborhood. And we are talking18 about cleaning it to those levels that wouldn't cause a19 threat for the natural use of Kennedy Sand and Gravel.20 MR. ABNEY: Okay. But, all the same, you i. /er21 permanently addressed -- you are saying you cannot22 specifically answer the question as to whether tha soil23 sample will be very comparative or not, or are you just24 saying you are going to take it below some established25 level of contamination?

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501 i MR. PENDERGAST: We are going to take it below2 ! an established level of contamination that is there at3 ] Kennedy Sand and Gravel.4 MR. ABNEY: I guess this is a question more or5 ; less to the medical individuals. But they were saying -- I6 i forget which one it was, but someone was saying that they7 investigated the pathways at Koppers, and that they have

i8 ! such a thing as a pilot health study. And I wanted to know

I9 ; if that pilot health study has been done at this location.10 DR. BEAUCHAMP: Carl Hickam is the one that has11 : mentioned something about the possibility of doing a pilot12 - health study. That, tc my knowledge, has not been done. I

i13 ; am with the state Health Department, and have only recently14 • become involved with this issue.

15 j But that is a possibility, if there are16 j indications that there seem to be elevated levels ofi17 | different types of conditions that, you know, might18 potentially be associated with the site.19 MR. ABNEY: Okay, What type of things would you20 have to see before you would initiate a pilot health study?21 I mean, I am trying to get some type of feel as to v/hat is22 considered by your agency, a point at which we had better23 do some public studying so far as health concerns. And are24 w© at that point right now?25 DR. ORLOFF: I am with ATSDR, and the pilot

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1 ; study you mentioned here, if it were done, would be done by2 , the agency I work for. Right now, we are working on the3 \ health assessment for the site* This is, as Mr. Hickam4 indicated earlier, an evaluation of the availablei5 | information on the site. And that would b- iuated for6 , potential impact on public health.7 If in the course of that preparation of the

i8 | health assessment we determine that there might have been9 j significant levels of human exposure to contaminants at the

10 ; site, or there are ongoing exposures or future exposures to

11 ; contaminants at the site, such that they could result in12 ; adverse health effects, then we have the option ot going on13 i and doing one of these pilot studies, exposure surveys,14 j disease incidence studies, whatever.i15 That will be determined at the completion of the16 j health assessment.ii17 MR. ABNEY: Okay. What is the projected time18 ! for completion of this original health assessment that youii19 were talking about?20 j DR. ORLOFF: It is in progress right now, and at

I21 this point it is in draft form, and it is undergoing inter^i22 agency review. After it goes through our internal reviexv,23 it is sent out to the regional office for Mr. Hickam and24 the EPA staff to review.25 Their comments will be incorporated into the


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• health assessment, and it will then be released to theiii public* I can't give you an exact date, because there mayi

; be unforeseen delays in the review process. But barringIiI anything like that, I would estimate a month to two monthsij is when that might be coming out.i| MR. ABNEY: Okay. Also, there was somethingsaid about a health surveillance program. Is thissomething that is associated with this pilot health study,or is this something that is done separately?

DR. ORLOFF: That, again, is part of the overallprocess. A surveillance study, if you are referring to anongoing long-term follow-up from the medical point of viewfor residents at the site, that is further on in theprocess.

The first thing we would do after the health| assessment would be to just perhaps take an inventory of|disease or illness in the area, or perhaps do some sort ofexposure survey -- that is- you can go out and take -- justto give an example, you could take urine or blood samples,analyze them, and see if there are contaminants that peoplesre being exposed to.

If those kind of tests are positive, then we goone step further and do a surveillance study, if it were soindicated.

MR. ABNEY: Okay. So you are saying that thereON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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53are plans for this urine analysis type --

DR. ORLOFF: I am saying that is a possibilityat this po ., and won't be decided until the healthassessment has been completed and evaluated.

MR. ABNEY: Okay. One other question. I didn'tcatch the last name of the gentleman from Atlanta, Georgia,the EPA -- Ken --

DR. ORIiOFF: I am Ken Orloff.

MR. ABNEY: Okay. Was your first name like Ken,also?

MR. PENDERGAST: No. It is Jim Pendergast.MR. ABNEY: And you are the remedial project

officer with EPA?

MR, PENDERGAST: That is right.

MR. ABNEY: Okay. I think that concludes myquestions. Thank you.

MS* GRAY: My name is Patt'icis Gray, and I tm aresident. I live at 303 Fannin in Carver Terrace.

I guess I am going to be addressing or askingsome questions about the health. I have two children, age12 and 3. Both of them have severe skin allergies. And Ihave also had to give allergy injections to certain otherchildren in the community.

If this is going to be part of a pilot program,could we request that something be done with that, if there


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Q^t, is an investigation into that? Because that is an issue,and tbc-re are a let o£ different skin problems that we dosee in the community there*

i DR. BEAUCHAMP: Skin rashes are a potentialI program associated with some of the contaminants at theisite, the PAHs, in particular, and also the|

j pentachlorophenol will also produce some --

! VOICE: Could you speak up a little bit?i! DR. BEAUCHAMP: The PAHs will produce some skinsensitization in some individuals, and thei

| pentachlorophenol will also potentially produce skinj rashes. And if it is decided that a health survey or someij sort of a pilot study were done, there would cer'cai^ly beiquestions which would ask about potential skin rashes ortypes of skin rashes, and all sorts of other types of

j medical complaints that people may have.

Now, if you do have some children with skinrashes, they should be seen by some physician to try toevaluate whether or not it is some common cause of therash, such as poison ivy or mosquito bites, or, you know,that may look like something, or just some allergicreaction to some other plant substances or something likethat in th© area, in order to rule out other types ofchronic conditions that will present with skin rashes.

MS. GRAY: Okay. Thank you.ON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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551 MS. OLIVER: Good evening. I am Pats/ Oliver,

2 and I am a resident of Carver Terrace.3 I would like some insight on the engineering by4 the drainage of the flooding situation that we are facing5 ; out there c*lso.i6 MR, PENDERGAST: Okay. I can speak to the7 flooding that might come from Carver Terrace back out. One8 of the things that we have tried to do, and will continue9 to try to do, is to prevent runoff coming from Kennedy Sand

10 | and Gravel in Carver Terrace.11 '• And one of the things that we wi!3 be doing very12 j shortly is writing a letter to Mr. Bruce Kennedy, who owns

13 i that land, requiring him to cut the brush and to allow the|14 j water to go back onto his property rather than the otherii15 way,i

16 | We do understand that there are chronic problems17 j with flooding in Carver Terrace. That element of thei18 I flooding is probably due to the residential neighborhood19 there actually being in the flood plain.20 Flooding problems are something that are not21 related to hazardous waste a': the site. They are something22 that is due to the construction of the streets,23 construction of the houses. If you are concerned about the24 flooding out there, that is something that the city, I25 believe, takes care of.


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56MS, OLIVER: No.

MR* PENDERGAST: They haven't?

MS. OLIVER: No. We have approached the cityseveral times,, and also the council person that wereelected by us as citizens, with that idea in mind, and wehaven't got any resulbs as yet.

And number one, tne brush that you are speaking• of is no longer brush. It is a forest. And it is in backi, of our homes, r.nd it subjecting to the water going over' there and back on us twice. It runs from one end of thej street, and we get a oackflow from Bruce Kennedy.Ij And we have children out there; we have pets outi! there; and we live out there. And we have to go throughiij it, wade through it, drive through it, and almost eat it.iI And this has been a constant hazard.ii So I know this is a part of the EPA, with thei!i air, the water, and everything being as toxic as it is.i

And what are the potentials for our children, especiallythe female or the male children, with all these toxins,which you say is cancerous? What about birth defects inpregnancies in our womenfolk?

MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. In terms of the brush,like I said, we will write the letter to Mr. Kennedy, andwe will get that cut down so the drainage does go fromMilam Street back to his property so the property doesn't


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come back out -- I am sorry/ so that tne drainage doesn't2 come- back out.*3 ; In terms of the other effects that could occur456

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from these chemicals, I am going to have to defer to one ofthese gentlemen here.

DR, BEAUCHAMP: Well, certainly, all of theproblems that you mentioned are, you know, potentialproblems that are associated with high levels of exposureto thes© types of chemicals.

Usually, if something like that -- birthdefects, for instance, or other chronic problems, cancer orsomething -- develops, it is as a result of a much higherexposure over a long period of time.

In most situations where sctie health effect,such as cancer, has been associated with exposure to thechemical, it is something that has taken place in theworkplace, where people are working over -- you know,emptying big sacks of pentachlorophenol into -- mixing asolution up, or something like that, where they are exposedto very high levels compared to anything that you would seein the neighborhood.

So in those types of situations, those are theonly ones so far that have really shown any increased ratesof cancers or any types of problems, reproductive problemsor birth defects and that sort.

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58MS, OLIVER: Are you making the statement now

that -- you say it takes over a period of years for these1 to become known medically to the EPA, when people have beeni: living out there for 20 to 25 years, or almost that long,iiand have become ill with kidney failures and have to go on

! machines, and more than one person -~ I mean, how long aperiod of time are you talking about that it takes thesechemicals to enter the body and then take their deadlyi

j effect? I mean, there have been some to die.ISo are you looking at the aspect overall of the

potential people that are out there now, and the ones thathave lived there over 16, 17, or 18 years, that has beenaffected in some way, possibly?

DR. BEAUCHAMP: Well, that is one of the reasonswhy we are -- you know, the EPA is really taking the leadon this and trying to get this site cleaned up, so that if

there is some possibility that there is an associationbetween contaminants on the site and these illnesses youmentioned in the neighborhood, that that will stop, theexposure stops. And that is why we are very anxious to getthe site cleaned up.

Now, all of the things that I have mentioned --you know, the cancers and things that you mentioned, thekidney disease or kidney failure -- these types of diseasesoccur in the general population, all over the country,


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591 whether or net there is any exposure to contaminants or; hazardous waste materials.

! The thing that you have to do when you are: trying to evaluate whether or not there is an association; with an exposure is to look at the control neighborhood --j I mean, the exposed neighborhood; compare the rates of! disease in the exposed neighborhood with the rates ofdisease in some other neighborhood that is similar in mostof its characteristics; and see if there is any differencein those rates of disease.

Because both places are going to have some typesof the diseases you mentioned, like cancer, for instance,is a very common, in the long run, type of disease. One

f! out of three people will contract cancer at some time intheir life. I mean, those are the statistics.

About 30 percent or more of the population willcontract cancer of some sort during their lifetime. Aboutone out of five people will die as a result of cancsr, frc-.

| all the different types of cancer.

MS. OLIVER: But what I am saying is, I feelthat, you know, a lot of these contaminants that you arespeaking of, you said, you know, are found in yourlaboratory clinical aspects to cause mice, or whatever,guinea pigs, that you use in there -- is known to give themthis disease.

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60And usually EPA and the science always says that

whatever the mice can detect or achieve from such as adisease are corrective. You have one white mice, and one

, mice over hare that is not in this particular environment.i And you enclose it off, and you put another mouse overij here, and he remains healthy as long as he don't enter thisenvironment. Once he enter this environment, then he iscontaminated.

So I feel like we are enclosed in there. And, Imean, if you say you are going to run a pilot program, youare giving us a feasible study so maybe you can go out tenyears from now and say, well, look, these people back herewas exposed to this, and this is what happened to thiswhile we were trying to clean it up.

In the meantime, wo have children, and we havefamilies moved in there. We have daughters growing up inthere, potentially getting pregnant, and marrying andcoming back in there.

I want to know what my future grandchildren aregoing to be looking forward to. I can't get out, but Iwant them out. And I want to know about my health. Imean, I am like them. Whatever I got now, I am sure I amreally contaminated fairly well. After 17 or 18 yearsthere, I am fairly well contaminated.

But I want to know what their chances are. ION THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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611 want to know what the youth that live there, what are their2 chances. And with these pilot studies, Z mean, how soon or3 how long before we would get some answers* from this?4 DR. BEAUCHAMP: Well, the bigcrest thing that can5 be done is to remove th© source of contamination, and that6 is what the EPA folks are doing to the best of their7 | abilities. They have to work within th© system, and thati8 is the only thing that is really go:r.g to help you, is to9 ; remove the source of contamination.

10 ! Doing a study Is not goir.g to help you in any11 j way, other than to possibly, you knew —12 ] MS, OLIVER: But couldn't we be removed while13 i you go in and clean up this site, so that we would not any14 longer be breathing it, eating it, and -- you know, iti15 j comes through the air. It comes through the water. And

i16 our soil is already contaminated with it.17 ! So, I mean, if a feasibility study is going to18 ' cost money -- and it is costing, what, you said 200 you

i19 • quoted, 200 what?20 MR. PENDERGAST: With everything put together,

i21 j it will probably be in the order of about $8 million.i22 MS. OLIVER: Eight million dollars? Don't you

23 know you could buy that place over there for that much?24 j And you can get mine for th© first million.25 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. There are a number of

ON THE RECORD REPORTING($12)450-0342

i 621 questions on here that I think I can answer.2 MS. OLIVER: I mean, you wouldn't even have to3 worry about it. You could declare it unsafe, and we would4 be all happy and breathing some fr©eh air somewhere else.5 MR. PENDERGAST; There are a number of questions6 that you asked I think I can answer* One is that you7 talked about your concerna about being contaminated today.8 That was tha concern that we had back in 1984 when EPA9 first got involved with the site.

10 And if you remember, on© of the very first11 : things we did was we went into peoples' yards where we12 | found measurable contamination, or we found visibleiI13 j contamination, or, in some areas, just to extend a block.14 i And w© put down some soil and some sod so that the peoplei15 in those yards would not com© into contact with that

i16 contamination.17 j Now, what we did there was we essentially put a

i18 wall between you and the contaminated soil. Now, what we19 wish that we could -- if we had a time machine, could go20 back to I960 and do it --21 MS. OLIVER: It didn't help. Th© rain came, a22 flash flood -- what, thre© waeks after you did that, and we23 were back to zero, th© first day. It didn't have a bit.24 The yard back there that you put this soil in, it is25 still -*- you know, w© can se© it. It is there for proof.


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631 You know, that topsoil, about that thick, and2 the contaminants -- when it rained, the water come up, and3 you still had the same situation.4 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. You can also remember5 that the contaminants that got in the soil in th0 first6 place took about 50 years to get into there. On© of the7 things that we did with there to like putting clean fill in8 is to start the clock over again. It takes a while for9 those things to build up to get to the health-threatening

10 , levels.11 ; What we are talking about doing now is coming in12 i and finishing the job, now that we know the best way of13 taking care of it. What we know that we can do is we can,14 once we pull the stuff out of the groundwater and pull it15 i out of the soil, that, again, that you won't come into16 ' contact v/ith these things, and you won't *•- and youri17 i children and your grandchildren won't from that point on.ii18 ' MS, OLIVER; I mean, I hear what you are saying.19 But you are still repeating yourself when you said that --20 as you had said before, that, by chance, with even removing21 this, there is going to still be some risk with the22 residents living there.23 MR. PENDERGAST; That is right. If we -- when24 we remove the soils, during that day -- and we can remove25 only about a quarter of a yard a day, so for the total of


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; 641 the week ~- that the contaminated soils will be re-exposed.2 And during that time, if there is dust, then that can get3 out to the area.4 Mow, of course, the concerns about kids going5 out in the area -- we are not going to let a child run6 around in the middle of the excavation.7 MS. OLIVER: You want to bet? You haven't met8 those at Carver Terrace.9 MR. PENDERGAST; Well, we have had some

10 experience in the past in other neighborhoods about keeping11 kids out.12 The concern about dust, we can water down the13 dirt itself, as the dry dirt goes to dust* And if14 necessary, and I understand that we are hearing some15 concern on here, we will be looking at »- at least looking16 at right now; I understand from a number of you, youIi17 I probably want us to actually do it -- talk about temporary

i18 relocation during that time.i19 MS. OLIVER: No. I want permanent. You know,20 if I move out of an area that is already killing me, I want21 my future -~ you know, 1 don't want to spend it in some22 nursing home, realizing the fact -- or over there in some23 hospital, realizing the fact that, you know, you all have24 been studying this now since five years ago, kicking it25 around maybe two or three.


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651 You know, I don't mind so much for myself. My2 life is spent, almost. But in the twilight years of my3 life, I want to realize that my future grandchildren and I4 want to realize that they, at least, have some future, with5 ' a healthy future.

6 You know, I don't want to leave them some7 contaminated land; that is the only legacy I am going to8 have to leave them, anyway. They can't buy out and can't9 sell out,

10 MR. WRIGHT: I think one of the questions that11 you asked in there was that -- it sounds like what you are12 asking for is a buyout, essentially. That is what --

13 MS. OLIVER: For $8 million, I mean, I think14 that -- you know, that is a small tract of land that you15 all just, you know, are really trying to clean up, when it16 is really -- you know, you don't know what is happening17 • over there.i18 ' MR. WRIGHT: The thing that we have to do,19 though, as required by the law, is that we have to look at20 cleaning up sites. So an $8 million cost is to clean up21 the site. It is not cheaper to buy you out, because buying22 you out doesn't address the problem yet.23 What we are directed by the law to do is to go24 in and clean up the contamination. And the only way that25 we buy people out -- and that has been don© at only a very

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661 few locations. There are, as I indicated earlier, over a2 thousand Superfund sites in the nation, and I believe that3 buyouts have occurred in only a couple.4 And those have been situations where it has been5 essentially impossible, for some reason or another, to6 clean up the site. So even if we were to buy you out, it7 i is not cheaper, because we would still have to clean up the8 site.9 In this particular instance, we can clean up the

10 site. We can clean it up to levels that are going to11 ' address the contaminants that could be of health concern.12 | And under the law, we can't go in and just buy out people,13 | when we have the ability to go in and do a cleanup that14 will eliminate that threat.15 ! MS. OLIVER: Over a period of 10 to 15 years, at16 ! that rate, and you tell me that the law writes such that,17 j you know, the people are in there while you are cleaning it

i18 up. With that $8 million figure, it is more important than19 the people living in there breathing that?20 MR. WRIGHT: Well, we aren't talking about an21 eight to ten year, necessarily. What we are talking about22 is, with the soil washing alternative, we are talking about23 roughly a year. With the biodegradation, we would have a24 barrier installed that would prevent you from having direct25 contact with those materials that are of concern.


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671 So we are not talking about eight or ten years2 : to implement all this, in terms of elimination of the3 threat of exposure,4 , MS. OLIVER: And you say you would have - - t o5 I check the forests in back of the houses there, so with usi6 \ being in the flood plain and the city not doing anything ori7 ! the county not doing anything, to get some drainage so thati8 : we can get some relief from the water. Right?

i9 MR. PENDERGAST: We can do something to keep thei

10 water from running from Kennedy Sand and Gravel onto your11 • properties on there. In terms of the rainwater that falls12 j down on your properties already and that rolls off, since13 j we right now have covered over the contaminated areasi14 I within the property, we don't see where that is a pathway15 ! of contaminants.16 ! If anything, we hope that that would move the17 ! water from your properties in Carver Terrace down to18 Kennedy Sand and Gravel. That is the way we want to have19 the water go.I20 I think that, from the discussion that you have,21 that we will definitely take a look at drainage, and make22 sure that runoff during the time in which we excavate does23 not present a problem -- that is, in the period of24 excavation, if it does rain, that that is not going to tear25 dirt up and carry it around. That is one of th© things


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68' that you brought out that we definitely will have to lookI at.

; MS. OLIVER: But I am saying the backwash on thei• water at this present time, from the time that you started; this at the end of Milam Street down there, which runsi

I right into the Kennedy property, is backing up on us, at!i the rate that it comes up and stalls cars in the middle ofi the street,ii

It com<3s wheel-high, and you can almost take ai nice rowboat, and really, with a good motor, you can goi

i down there on a good downpour. And this is coming righti! back from this track site,(iI So we are getting water coming from threeangles: From the downpour from the railroad track comingdown this way, and it washes down Milam Street; then TravisStreet is bringing this water in, and it has no place togo.

So the water is really backing up on us bothways. And then it doesn't drain properly into Wagnet

| Creek, which is right behind us, because of all the treesiand the forest that is back there. And then adjacent tothat is Grifford Hill [phonetic]. So if we have anoverflow there, you know, it just comes right in the house.

MR, PENDERGAST: Okay. We will take a look atthat.


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69MS. OLIVER: There is no levee, no protection

whatever. And I feel like if the water could get someeaseway there, which they tried before, and it didn'twork -- you know, I mean you built a fence around GriffordHill. You know, that was an expensive fence. And I thinkwith that pipe down there, you could have just washed itright on through.

! MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. We will take a look atj that.1 MS. OLIVER: Because it is really, you know, acritical situation right now. And I appreciate your ti.ne.Thank you for listening.

: MRS. ABNEY: I am Mrs, Ellee Abney, and I onlyi' have two questions to ask. There are a lot of other peoplehaven't even asked the question, and you all are leaving.Most of us are leaving Carver Terrace.

1 have been down there since 1967. And oneI question I wanted to ask you is, I keep hearing you say youare going to remove the contents. The contents -- youhaven't said anything about what it have done to us.

Because it sure have done something to us. AndI want you to do something about it. I have been there along time* My son. just spoke to you a while ago, wasreared, raised up there. I have five children was raisedthere.

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1 i Now, I began hearing these meetings in 1985.2 • But I remembor when this came out. I have something about3 i it that I do know. But they let us black peopj.es know4 : about it in 1984, I am telling you what I know.5 j And this young man heard me speak a lot of times

i6 I at Southwest Center. And I am going to say this again. II7 ! said it in the meeting at February 5 in 1985 , I listenedI

8 ! at so many meetings, and this and that.i9 ; I said, well -- and I got that clippings, I got

1C i the history of every meeting they had. I said, by thatjI11 I time, from 1985 , every time we hear you all talk, it isii12 ' maybe ten or five years later. By that time, I said, I13 wouldn't be around, because 1 am not a young lady.

:/^ f14 ! I spent 25 years and 10 months -fco" the in \Zimmer,i15 ! where I retired from there four months ago, I see where

16 they have something against you. So, you see, I lived in17 i it, worked in it, and drank water in it. I haven't drinkedi18 | any water in my kitchen sink sine© '85 . I bought a wateri19 ; purifier,

20 And if anybody in here go by there now and take21 that faucet out, you will see something you don't see why22 we are not dead. So I want you peoples to do something,23 and stop talking about this long -- I know you white folk24 can do it*25 And you know what 1 said? I hat© to say this,

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and then I don't mind it, too. I am going to say it,because I am not afraid to say it. I do think andbelieve -- and I hope I am wrong, because I am a member ofNew Hope Baptist Church, and I love pecple, and I am goingto heaven.

But let me tell you something. If we weren't

black -- if every other house down there was white andevery other one was black, they would have tore that placeapart. I am telling you how I feel. Now, I don't knownothing about the rest of Carver Terrace.

But you know I am over 60 years old, and there

ain't very much that I mind saying when I am telling the

truth. Now, this thing ought to come to a close. In fact .if there was every other one white, it would have.

You know, when I came to Texarkana, it was in1941 , long before some of them was born. I looked at a lotof stuff. And you know I been here, and I know this city.I wouldn ' t stand here and take up all the time, becausesome more of these peoples want to talk. But I am just sosick and tired of you all putting us off .

Okay. I am going to say something else maybe Ihave no business saying, but I am going to say it, and Iain't going run after I say it. Okay. I am one of themlive in Carver Terrace didn't file a suit. I don't care ifthe United States knows. But it wasn't because I shouldn't

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2 ; But after I learned how the others was going, I3 ; let it alone. Because if, at the age I am now, there is no4 ; way in the world that I want to leave there. At this age,5 . where could I go to start off to build another home?6 i Something or other, I got attached to a letter.ii7 I am going to say this, and I hope some of them otheri8 peoples are here to listen. The letter said $4 ,500 . Under9 : that thing -- I am going to hurry up and sit down. But

10 . under this thing, you had something attached to your deedsj11 ; to go to New Boston.

12 You know what I say about that? No, I will13 never do that. I need money. I am not a rich woman. 1

i14 i wouldn't do that for nothing. And I will tell you who

15 | else -- I talked to Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Craig, maybe in16 : the building. She is a very sweet lady. I love her. I

i17 i wouldn't take nothing for her.

t18 But love and getting stuff together is two19 different things. I am too old to start over, and these20 young peoples are too young to be run over. See, it don't21 take but a little -- and I want you all to do something.22 And then the peoples that did get paid off -- a lot of them23 think I don't know. I know what every one of them got.24 You couldn't give it to me, and I don't have a dime,25 See my son sitting over there, was raised up


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from five years over there. I don't know how I did it, buti he did finish Texas A&M, all of them. You know. God isjust good to me. And you can't kill me, and you are not

, going to make me sign nothing like that, and then 90 backii there and run me off, and here I am wondering. Now, you! white folks do something, you hear?I' MR. WRIGHT: Thank you.I| MS, WARREN: I am Mattie D. Warren. I live with: ray daughter. I am sick. I have high blood pressure. I; didn't get anything out of the settlement. My grandsondid, though. But I didn't. I got zero, nothing, not onepenny.

I remember very well when Carver Terrace -- whenthe creosote was over there. I know every man that workedover there, I remeir.bsr very well when they had a dump, thelittle old dump train coming down through there, downthrough Milam, Third Street, where the office is there,where Mr. Jess© Pace stayed.

I know all those houses. 1 was a neighborhoodworker. I have walked the streets of Carver Terrace,Sunset, New Town. Name them, and I have walked them. Andwe have gotten something done through the neighborhoodwork. And I am proud of it.

1 am 71 years old. I have high blood pressure.I suffer with my stomach. Dr. Bells was my doctor, and I


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i 74got another doctor. I can't recall his name right at thetime. I got to see him on August 11.

I am a sick woman. I have been over there eversince my grandchildrans was small. Thay went swimming,*Ruben Abnoy, some more of the children*, went back there

| swimming, too. It is a wonder they are not dead. Theyii! went behind my back going swimming over there in Griffordii1 Hill over there.; I am a very sick woman, and I don't know in thei| next four or five years where I liable to be, I liable toiiI be dead. And another thing I heard, this was going to bo a• commercial area. Going to -- the ones that got theIsettlement, th©y want to be sold out and I be throw&d out,probably. I am just telling you how I feol.

I am a v&ry gick woman. And I am going to seewhat my doctor have to say. I done been examined. I donebean X-rayod from my head to my feet. I am a very sickwoman. But I got zero. I didn't get nothing. I wantedyou all to know that. And I am looking for something, too.

MR, WRIGHT: 1 would like to just respond to acouple things here. Ms. Warren was talking about acommercial area. I am not sur© ©xactly what you arereferring to.

When Jim was giving his talk, he was talkingabout the area that is Kennedy Sand and Gravel being a


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commercial area versus a residential area. I don'tthink -- I am not aware of any discussions or anything elseabout turning the Carver Terrace subdivision into acommercial area.

I am not sure i£ that is what you were saying,but when we were referring to the commercial area, we weretalking about the Kennedy Sand and Gravel area, and thatbeing a nonresidential area. W© weren't referring anythingor saying anything at all about Carver Terrace,

A couple of other points from Mrs. Abney's talk.In terms of the water in the kitchen, we did sample thewater in the taps, and since the water in the public watersystem does not come from the groundwater right there inthe subdivision, it is not contaminated.

We sampled it to be sure; it comes from anothersource, so we don't think there is any reason to have anyconcern at all about using the public drinking water system

I and the water in your tap that is furnished from the city.Another thing was an indication that there wasi

r: some belief that this investigation took a lot longer thaniiI a normal investigation, and I can tell you that is not thetii case. We have had a number of sites that went on th©National Priority List that started investigations at thesame time this site did, and they are all coming toconclusion at about the same time.


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76The time frame we are looking at for Koppers

Texarkana site is no different than the time frame we arelooking at doing the investigation feasibility study at allthe other sites that w© are working on in the region.

So it hasn't been a delay. It hasn't beenpurposefully delayed by any means at all. It just takes acertain amount of time to go through the investigation andfeasibility study, and the time we ar© looking at here isvery normal and typical of this type of investigation.

MR. HICKAM: Larry, can I say a word, please?In regards to health studies and in regards to black peopleand white people, I think I would be remiss if I didn't atleast try to clear the air with one or two items ofinterest.

! We can't make everything okay for everybody.|j Our existence with ATSDR, which Congress mandated -- theyi| wanted a separate health agency to make an objective call*

We give you that call from the best scientific minds that1 we have *

1 have been in Dallas for three years. I havebeen involved in two major health studies, and they haveboth been in the black community. And 1 give you my wordon that, and I will give you the names of the study if youneed to verify it.

All I want you to know is that our scientists,ON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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77our physicians, and our people are looking at every pieceof data that they can get their hands on for this site. Ifa study is warranted, you will have the study, not based onany other reason than it is scientifically and medicallywarranted.

I just felt like that you needed to know that,and I speak to you from the bottom of my heart when I tellyou that, because I don't want you to think that it is awhite issue versus a black. It is not that. I give you myword on it. Thank you.

I am sorry to delay you, sir.MR. MOORE: My name is Roy Moore. My parents

have a house over there, and I have lived over there withthem since they moved over there. I think it was about '67or ' 6 8 . And I have rented a house over there, and I have ason that has lived there about 12 years now. He lives onthe innin Street side of it, where you all came in and didthe covering of the soil.

I would like to have some more specific medicalquestions asked. You said that this -- it had been proventhat this causes cancer. What are the other aspects? Whatother diseases, or whatever, have you all found this tocause?

DR. BEAUCHAMP: Actually, the substances that wear© talking about that ars primary contaminants on the site


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781 ! have only been demonstrated to be cancer-causing in2 animals. The studies that they have done have been in --3 MR. MOORE: There is no other -- nothing with4 your respiratory system, or any of those things h re been5 proven ro --6 • DR. BEAUCHAMP: Certainly long-term exposure to7 these contaminants, like pentachlorophenol , can and does8 : cause some chronic problems , including respiratory9 problems, liver problems, and kidney problems, too.

10 MR. MOORE: Okay. Let me ask you this. My son11 used to play in the back yard on this crust. After it12 rained, there would be this little crust on the ground. He

i13 | would play in that sand. You know kids like to play in|i14 j sand. I am pretty sure you all did when you all were15 small. Would you consider this direct contact with this --16 DR. BEAUCHAMP: It just depends —

i17 MR. MOORE: It was there. I mean --i18 , DR. BEAUCHAMP: It just depends entirely on howi19 i much of what contaminant was in the sand, if any.20 MR. MOORE: Okay. The sit© is 330 Fannin. I am21 pretty sure they did test there. They covered the yard. I22 would like to know myself, from the EPA, what do you23 consider in ten years of him staying there and playing out24 in this dirt in the back yard, what percent or what -- how25 much did he contaminate himself?

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79MR. PENDERGAST: In the interests of saving some

time, we have the remedial investigation here. And afterthis, wa can sit down and look, find your house on the map,and we can find out what contaminants, if any, we found inthe yard, and we can discuss that, I don't have thenumbers memorized for every single yard.

MR. MOORE: Okay. Let me ask you one morequestion about ^hat. Does it describe in there or tell youover what year or what time span that you would realize theeffect of this? is there one?

MR. PENDERGAST: Yes. We do have what is calleda risk assessment, and that is in the feasibility study.And what the risk assessment does is it looks at thecontaminants found on the site, and it looks at the risk,the probability, if you think of that, of having cancer.And it also looks at the probability of having other healtheffects that aren't related to cancer.

I don't have the specific numbers for the cancerones in my mind, but I do remember the noncancer numbers welooked at. We looked at all the contaminants that don'tcsus© cancer but could cause organ damage, the otheraspects referred to.

The possible intake of a child -- that is, youknow, a child there who might be accidentally eating thedirt or getting it absorbed through th© skin -- through


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3C1 those pathways, the child would not take in enough that,2 even in the laboratory animals, that we didn't see any3 contamination -- I am sorry, didn't se© any health impacts.4 MR, MOORE: Well, he can't consume it. If he --5 MR. PENDERGAST: Even through the ingestion.6 Even if the child was out there and taking toys and puttingi7 in the mouth, or eating a mud pie, which some children do,

i8 like I did when I was a kid, and those type of ingestion9 rates, what w© call ingestion or eating.

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10 Even with that, a child would not take in enough11 of the sitg contaminants that, given that same amount, that

I12 • the laboratory animals did not show health effects, adversei13 i health effects. Now, on the cancer numbers, I v/ould have

i14 : to go back and review that before I can discuss it with15 you.

i16 i MR. MOORE: Well, let me ask you one more17 question, and then I am through. You all, as a board here,i18 ! are you biased or unbiased? You don't have anything to do19 • with Koppers. Right?20 i MR. PENDERGAST: W© certainly don't.i

21 MR. MOORE; Okay. Bacaus© —22 MR. PENDERGAST: And there is on© thing that I23 hat© to --24 MR. MOORE: I mean, you know, when you got25 somebody to com© in her© and offer you §4 ,800 to release


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811 all future responsibilities to the company, and also they2 are going to pay the legal costs if any of their kids want3 to sue them or anything -- you know, that kind of scares4 you.5 MR. PENDERGAST: Yes. I want to mak© something6 I perfectly clear. The U .S . EPA is not the Koppers Company,7 and the settlements that Koppers is offering is not8 something related to what we do.9 MR. MOORE: Okay. Let me --

10 MR. PENDEHGAST: If you sign or don't sign, that11 is up to you. We are still going to do the cleaning of the12 site.

13 MH. MOORE: Okay. To begin with, when you all14 decided to come in here and clean up this site, it was15 J enough contamination that it would merit it, that it was

i16 | dangerous enough that it would cause serious health effectsi17 to the people that were living there. Right? Was that --18 MR. PENDERGAST: W© knew that the types of19 contaminants on the site could cause health problems. And20 because of that, we took some action. We didn't know21 exactly what was out there, in terms of how much, when we22 came in in ' 84 .23 MR. MOORE: Okay. Was it discovered that there24 was enough there at the ground level in certain sites at25 that time, that it was enough there that it could cause


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82serious medical problems?

MR. PENDERGAST: It was enough there that wethought that there was some concern. And we didn't know,but we would rather be safe than sorry. We would ratherput sod down in yards that didn't need it, rather than find

I out later it did.The things that we look at now, after we got all

• the data in, is that we are looking at things that take alifetime of exposure before the effects start being saen --lifetime meaning a number or years.

So whether, in going back in time, whether it; was prudent to put something down for the last three years: or not, that is not something that we really can say. We, just wanted to do it then because we didn't know.iI MR. MOORE: How much did you all project the1 project to cost to clean up?i MR. PENDERGAST: I think the total cost of! putting everything together is something in the order ofabout $8 million.

MR. MOORE: Eight million dollars? Now, you allwill pay that cost, or Koppers will pay that cost?

MR. PENDERGAST: It would depend. If theKoppers Company would volunteer to do the work, they wouldpay the cost up front. I£ no one volunteered to do thework, we would pay it, and then we would sue the people who


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831 are part of the companies involved to try to get that money2 back.3 MR. MOORE: Okay. I am getting back to the4 point -- I know it is repetition, what somebody said5 earlier* You know, why sit there and -- th© people there6 want to move. They don't want to live over there.7 They know the property is not worth anything,8 and they can't sell it for anything. People have paid on9 these houses 15, 20 years; they paid for them twice. Okay.

10 You are looking at -- my dad is about 68 years old. He11 can't afford to go out and start repaying for another12 place. Okay?13 If you are going to spend $8 million, well, if14 Koppers going to be the one that spend $8 million, then to15 me Koppers should be the one that say, hey, okay. We can16 spend ~~ I think Koppers admitted to themselves they17 paid -- spent $1 million trying that first suit,IB Okay. So they didn't want to spend that much19 money any more to go to court, because in th© long run,20 they would be a lot more money. If you could take $821 million, why can't you just -- the people that don't want22 to be there, $8 million -- how many homes over there? Do23 you Know?24 VOICE: Seventy-eight.25 MR. MOORE: Seventy-eight? Gosh, that is

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84$102,500-some apiece. You know, and you could get out ofthat for a lot less than that, I imagine.

MR, WRIGHT; it goes back to —MR. MOORE; I know. I know what you are saying.

I understand that. But my point is that my dad and mother,they went in there and they bought this place, and it was a

, place that they were -- they retired. They were goingi to -- you know, they paid hard-earned money for it.iiii

You know, in today's market when you buy a houseat £20,000, when you get it paid for on 30 years how muchyou pay for it. So actually, to them, the property isworth more than a lot -- three times more than $20,000.

They would be rather satisfied letting Koppershave this stuff, or the EPA, or whoever wants it, and just

j get out of there* I am pretty sure the majority of thei: people over there feel that way.ii 1 realize that you are not in the market ofbuying homes, you know. But I am pretty sure that, hey,the responsibility lies back over here. If they are goingto have to spend $8 million to clean it up, then why can'tthey say, hay, $8 million, and it is theirs? I am prettyaure everybody over there would sail it to them, if theywant it.

MR. WRIGHT: It all goes back to tho law thatwas passed by Congress, the Suparfund law. And that law

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says that we will go cut on these sites and clean up thearea,

MR. MOORE; It doesn't say — there is nothingin there that if the people don't want to live there, ifthey want the company that built these things, these housesthere, in a contaminated site — there is nothing therethat says, hay, okay, you all can't make these peoplerefund these people's money, or anything to -- there isnothing there?

MR. WRIGHT: What the law saya is, it talkaabout cleanup of sites. And that is the business we arein, is cleanup of sites, not buyout of homes and relocationof people, unless ws have s situation where we can't cleanup the site, where we can't abate the health threat* Inthis particular case, w@ can.

MR, MOORE: I think the threat has alreadyhappened. When you stay there 15 to 20 years, the threatis -- you have already bean exposed to it. You know, thatis just lika being exposed to poison ivy. you know, if youare allergic to it, it is immediate.

But I think 15 or 20 years in a site that iscontaminated with the kind of things that you all aretalking about, isn't that long enough exposure to it to —that you are going to have some type of effect from it, ifit is going to --• you know, if you are --


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MR, W RIGHT: you know, if you remember that oneslide that Jim had, it gets back to the exposure pathways ,and the potential for exposure. And going back to yourother question, in '84 , I think your question was why did jwe decide to go in there and do a cleanup? Was there ahealth threat?

We didn't have any indication of direct medicalhevidence that, you know, anybody had been impacted. But we f-

looked at the levels there. Wo took a very conservativeapproach and said there is a potential for some impact &

ihero. •We didn't have any evidence of it, but taking

that conservative approach, we want in and took someimmediate action to stop that pathway of migration throughth@ soil --

MR. MOORE: Ara you talking about what came out *in the paper, about putting six Inches of soil down overthe top of it? ;

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MR. WRXGHT; Yes.:MR. MOORE: There was no six Inches put down !

ovar there anywhere. I guarantee you. Okay. I watchedit, the whole thing, when they started. Wowhar® was theresix lnch$& of soil put down.

Let me ask you this, too. 1 was also advised by |Koppsrs that the statute of limitations to sue thorn

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871 regarding this thing had run out. Since you all are pretty2 high up and educated people, would you have any response to3 that? Is there one?4 MR. WRIGHT: I don't know, We are engineers,5 not attorneys, but --6 MR. MOORE: Nobody is her© that — okay.7 MR. WRIGHT: We don't have an attorney with us.8 We do have attorneys in our offices in Dallas. We didn't9 bring one along tonight, but — and I am not sure ©ven,

10 quite honestly, what statute you would be going under; if11 it would be the law that we administer, or I would think it12 would be some sort of private action versus, you know, a13 law that the Government would take action against a company14 like Koppers to get them to clean up.15 MR. MOORE: Who ia responsible for this, really?16 Who is responsible?17 MR. WRIGHT: Under the Superfund law, the law,18 again, passed by Congress defines who is responsible, and

i19 ; says responsible parties are owners and/or operators of thei

20 j property. In cases where people --i

21 i MR. MOORE: Developers?22 j MR. WRIGHT: It doesn't say developers. It says23 owners and operators. Now, if th© developers were past24 owners, they could potentially be brought in under the25 statute. It talks about people who generated wastes that


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went to the site.Wall, in this particular case, the wastes that

are at the site essentially resulted from the operationsthat were taking place there for ereosoting and th© woodpreserving operations.

So when we looked at potentially responsibleparties when we started the investigation, w© sent lettersto two potentially responsible parties, and they were theowners o£ the property -- sent to ten, I am corrected.

And th© people who were sent the letters wereKoppers, who ov/ned and operated the site essentially forroughly 50 years; Bruee Kennedy, who owned and operatedthat portion of the site -- he is the current owner of theKennedy Sand and Gravel area; and the -~ they were thedevelopers?

MR. PENDERGAST: Some of the other people wessnt it to -- one was Archi© Simon, who does own aom@ landout there, some of the undeveloped land in Carver Terrace;and soms of the people associated with him and hisenterprise in there.

One of the questions you asked there is aboutth© developer. Carver Terrace, Incorporated, who built th©land. At one time, let's say about thre© years ago, wewould have contacted them. One of the things that we havefound out through court cases under Superfund — and, as


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891 you can imagine, a lot of companies do sue EPA over2 Superfund ~- we have found out that the owners, in between3 the time in which the contamination went into the land and4 the time now, those intermediate landowners -- those ones5 have gotten out of liability under th© act.6 Now, that is what the courts have decided, and7 : that is one of the reasons why we haven't gone after the

i8 1 developer in trying to pursue liability there*9 MR. MOORE: I don't think I have any more

10 ; questions at this particular point in time* If I do have11 any more, I will put them in writing, and I will mail them12 'to you.i13 | MR. PENDERGAST: Thank you for your interest.14 j MR. PARKER: I am Raymond Parker, and I am a

i15 resident of Carver Terrace also. And from the chemicals16 that you all say you all found over there that mighti17 possibly cause cancer in mice, guinea pigs, or whatever --18 over this long period of time, what I am curious to find19 out is, are we being used for guinea pigs?20 DR. BEAUCKAMP: I don't think anybody has done21 this by design, so I would not at all put you in the22 category of being used as a guinea pig. This was an23 accident. The developer, and the people who were making24 the wood preserving operation back in those days, did not25 realize at the time what the potentials were involved with


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those substances that they were using.It is only with more recent studies where, you

know, the research laboratories have gone in and done thesedetailed, lengthy -- it usually takes a two-year study todo a rat or a mouse study to try to determine if there is acancer-causing effect.

And during that two years, they are continuallydosing the animal, usually on a five-day basis, eight hours

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. a day, or something like that. Or if it is given in the'. food, you know, they will give it in some known; concentration in the food.IJ So, you know, I certainly don't put you in the1 category of guinea pigs; you are an unfortunate individualwho is just a victim of circumstances, essentially, is howI would categorize it.

! MR. FARKER: Another thing is the soil that theyi put down over there in certain yards. Why is it that theyii had someone to come around and ask us all if we wanted thatdone, but yet only they put it down over there in a certainarea?

MR. PENDERGAST: Well, when w© put the soil downin yards back in '85 , we didn't have a good measurement ofwhat was in peoples' yards to say, yes, this yard needs itand no, this yard doesn't need it.

What we had. was a couple of ways in which weON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-031 ?

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911 decided whether soil went down. One was based on some2 initial samples we had down on West Third Street. We knew3 that there was some contamination there, and that is why4 the soil went in that area.5 In other areas, wa saw soms tar mats — you6 know, things that look like an old asphalt road mixed in7 with dirt. And that is the area of the drip tracks, up8 around Fannin, And w© put som® into there.9 And in other areas, too, w© asked people, you

10 know, whether they found anything in their yards, because,11 you know, we only put so many holes into peoples' yards to12 look. Some of you have been working in your yards, digging13 up, found things that we wouldn't find in two years of14 , looking.i15 So we ask©d for that information, to see whether16 you might have found something that, if we would have bean17 ; out there digging for two years, if ws found that, w© would18 hava decided to put some sod down. And those are the

i19 reasons why we picked certain yards to havs them and some!

20 ; others not ;o,i

21 MR, PARKER: Well, this is what I was just22 i saying. I am sure everybody els© fe@l th© same way. Where23 j you say you asked us what was found there, did we s&©

i24 J anything in our yard, but yet you are sending people over25 i there that is qualified that is supposed to do this.

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I 921 I know you all answer to somebody else higher2 than you all. Right? I am sure you do, because this is a3 regional office. Right?4 MR. PEKDERGAST: That is right.

5 MR. PARKER: You are regional people. There is6 ' people in Washington over you all. So what I am saying isiI7 . this. More or less, this is more for just the record, toit8 show that you all tried to do something about it.9 It is not a matter of whether you do it or not.

10 It is Just to show that you tried to do something. Right?11 MR. PENDERGAST: No, sir. W@ are going to go12 out there and we are going to clean the contamination.13 MR. PARKER: Regardless the yard that you put14 soil in whether they signed the papers saying put it in

i15 there, you are going to do everybody's yard over there16 anyway?17 MR. PENDERGAST: No, sir. Not all the yards.IS What we are going to b© looking at is, during the studiesii19 we have don© in th© last three years, where we havs gone20 ! out and we have collected soil samples and we have found21 ! th© areas that have corresponded to the areas of22 contamination, we are going to go back, and we are going to23 go into thoaa yards where we have found something, and we24 are going to find - - w e are going to do a better sampling.

When we do our first run there, we want to findON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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931 an idea of what could or what can. What we want to do now2 is find out those areas that exactly, in terms of quarter3 yard lots -- that is, in your yard, a quarter of your yard4 i« half your front yard, and the other quarter is the other5 front yard, and then the back -- look at those areas,6 resample them again to get a precise measurement on what

i7 . the contamination level there is, if there is any.8 From that, if it is above the level that could9 cause threats to human life, those are the yards that would

10 be cleaned up. Now, that is not to ssy that ©very yard11 will, because there ax© sorao yards out there that are built12 ; over parts of the property that weren't used for wood13 preserving activities.

j14 And yards like that, without any contamination,i

15 ; we are not going to clean up, because thar© isn't any16 contamination to clean,17 ' MR. PARKER; How do you all know that? You are18 asking the people if they saw anything in their yards. You

i19 haven't been there to test it.20 | MR. PENDERGAST: That was in th© initial stage,ii21 I back three years ago, before we had the information that we22 ; have now. When we start off in the beginning wher© w©

i23 don't know much about tha site, when th© agency first walks24 on the sits, we don't know what is out there, and w© want

i25 i to find out.

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And one of the things we do is we ask people.And the people -- besides asking people, we also go out and

; get the samples. And now we have got all that informationi! together to identify the areas that do need to be cleanedup.

MR. PARKER: 1 want to ask the people something.How many of you all understood all that mess they put upthere on that board tonight? Nobody in here. You all comein hare with the same thing. Every time you come in her©,nobody understands these statistics that you are putting onthese people.

MR. WRIGHT: Well, that is one --MR. PARKER: Just like I said, you all got a

purpose. Vou got to show on your records that you did tryto do something, so you can carry it to your higher boss.That is the basic lin©. That is the bottom lin&, right?

MR. WRIGHT: No* That is not the bottom line.i The bottom line is, as Jim indicated, we are going to goout there, and those yards where the contamination levelsare high enough, and pick up that stuff and get it out ofthere, or at least address it, through th© soil washing orthe bioremediation method.

W© ara going to go into th© area where wa havecontaminated groundwater, and w© are going to extract thatgroundwater, and wa are going to clean it up. And that is


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95the purpose of the meeting tonight, is to talk about that.

We tried to put together a presentation that wethought would help people understand that. Maybe thathasn't succeeded, but that is the purpose of the meeting,is to try to do that. That is why we have this session

i afterwards, is to try to answer questions Ilk© you arei

I raising.F

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i One of the things I dion't understand by the way1 you said was something about signing the paper. What paper| are you talking about?

MR. PARKER: Well, they had a lady come aroundtrying to get people to sign to see if --

MR. WRIGHT: Now, you are talking aboutsomething with Koppers. Correct?

MR. PARKER: Well, perhaps.

MR. WRIGHT: Okay. That has nothing to doj whatsoever with --ii

MR. PARKER: Well, why did -- who put the soildown in the other peoples' yards around on Third?

MR. WRIGHT: EPA went in thore and determinedthat soil needed to be put in. Again, under the Suparfundlaw, before we spend money, Congress has said in the lawthat wa will go and seek those people who are potentiallyresponsible for th© contamination and ask them to do th©cleanup so w© can save the Government money. If they don't

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961 come forward and do it, then we will take money out of the2 Superfund and do it ourselves.3 We are in the very same situation here. We are4 going to determine what the remedy is. We are going to5 determine what yards are going to be cleaned up. We are6 i going to determine the method, and all that sort of thing,7 ! independent of Koppers.iQ We are going to go to Koppers, though, because9 the Superfund law tells us to, and we are going to say to

10 them, this is what w@ want done. Now, will you do this,11 because the Superfund law says before w© spend money, w@12 have to s@© if somebody else who is responsible for it will13 i pay for it. And that is exactly what we are going to do.i14 ! We are going to go to them.15 If they come back and say no, they won't, then16 we have two options. One is to take the money out of the17 Superfund, hire our own contractors, go in there and do the18 work ourselves, and try to sue them to recover the money wei19 ! spent.

20 The other option is Just to take them to courtj21 immediately, if we can't reach agreement, and litigate over

22 forcing them to do that work because they are potentially23 responsible for that contamination.24 So that is where we are at. In terms of you25 signing a paper or anybody signing a paper with Koppers,


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97that has absolutely nothing to do with what we are going todo out thsr* and what we are going to say is needed for thecleanup.

We don't know who signed what paper, and we' don't care, quite honestly, because that doesn't have anyi bearing on what we are going to require. So if you signedi! a paper with Koppers, we don't even know that.|1 We are not a party to any lawsuit betweenI Koppers and you. We don't know who signed what, and like Ii' said, we don't particularly care, quite honestly, bacauaeI it doesn't impact us.i

MR. PARKER: Yes. That is about the conclusionrI[I we came to, as far as getting that mass cleaned up over! there- Nobody really cares.

MR. WEIGHT: Wall, that is not true.MS. WALLS: My name is Rosie Walls, 339 Fannin

Street. You are talking about this black tar, somethingsimilar to asphalt. in the back yard, I have had threeloads of dirt whan I first moved there, that dirt havegone down, washed down. And it looked like a pond, \ pool,whatever you want to call it.

You can dig a foot, and you can run into thisstuff, is that what you call some of this toxin orwhatever you are talking about?

MR. PENDERGAST; First ©£ all, I missed theON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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981 address. Where?2 MS. WALLS: 339 Fannin.3 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. I don't know ail the4 house numbers. Can you roughly tell me where on Fannin —5 MS. WALLS: Okay. Yes, I can. If you come in6 from Seventh Street, you turn on Milam, depending if you7 are coming left — you turn on Milan. You get across the8 railroad tracks, the first street you turn back, which is9 Travis, you turn left.

10 The first street to your right, the first street11 you get to, you turn right, you run right into the hard.12 There is a vacant lot before you get to my house.13 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. So it is at Fannin14 Street up by Travis?15 MS, WALLS: Yes.16 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. And you said in the back17 yard or the front yard, when you brought in --18 MS. WALLS: It is the back yard. I have had19 ! soil put there. I have had soil put there in the front and20 back yard. But the back yard is the one. It looks lik© a21 pool back there now. And dig about a foot, you run into22 this black asphalt stuff.23 MR. PENDERGAST: That is probably related to the24 creosote. The reason I say probably is that that is the25 type of thing you would see from th© drip tracks in the


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99L creosote area. And where you are talking at Fannin Street2 is the area of the old drip tracks.3 I have to say probably, because I don't know if4 the Koppere Company put any roads in there, and --5 MS. WALLS: I didn't see any roads in there. I6 usad to go over there a lot, because my husband used to7 work over there, so I know about it. And all along there,8 old creosote or ties -- some people call them ties; you all9 call them them wood treating, a different name to what we

10 give them, because you all are more proper with your talk.11 You understand?12 But what I am talking about, yes, there are.13 There are crogsties, we call them. I don't know what you14 . all would call them.15 | MR. PENDERGAST: Crossties.16 MS. WALLS: Because you can dig, and you break17 t them off. In some places, you can't even break them. You18 | know, you can't even chip them off, because they are so

I19 hard. And it seems like they have become concrete, hard20 ! concrete there.i21 ! MR. PENDERGAST: That is probably what we call

i22 the drip tracks, where the creosote dripped off of wood and23 onto the soil.24 MS. WALLS: Okay. What I am trying to find out,25 with all of that in there, and grandchildren -- I have


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1001 grand and I have great-grand -- is coming ever there2 playing. Isn't that dangerous to their lives as well as to3 • mine?4 MR, PENDERGAST: Okay, Are they playing5 actually in the area of the tar source?6 MS. WALLS: Yes, they are. That is what I ami

i7 : talking about. The back yard is for them to play in.8 ! MR, PENDERGAST: Okay, Now, what I didn't9 understand is, you said there was soil, and then underneath

10 it you dug down and you found the tars. How far down were11 ; they digging down?12 . MS. WALLS: A little better than a foot.iI13 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. If they are digging down

!14 i into there, yes, they are coming into contact. If they are15 I not digging into there, then they wouldn't be.i16 ' MS. WALLS: Wait. Now, I didn't quite17 ; understand. If the kids are digging into there --18 I MR. PENDERGAST: If they are digging down19 through the soil down into that area --20 MS. WALLS: Well, you know how children play.21 You know how you played when you was growing up, digging

i22 holes in the ground, making mudholes and things like that.23 Do you understand what I am talking about?24 MR. PENDERGAST: Yes, That is what I said. If25 they do dig down there *- and I am not presupposing what a


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1011 child does, but if they do dig down, and you know if they2 do or not, and you said that they did, then they wov"d be3 coming into contact.

4 MS. WALLS: See, the dirt is not doing — the5 dirt haven't done any good. I guess it is washing off or6 going further down into the ground. Whatever, it is not7 there. It still puddles there*8 So what you all will do, only -- now, looking at9 the others putting dirt in the yard, you all talking about

10 spreading dirt, I didn't see but about a half inch after it11 be spread in the yard. One truckioad is not going to do,12 and then put the grass on top of that. That is not helping13 the soil any. Right?

14 MR. WEIGHT: One of the things we are trying to15 . do there is to put in a sod barrier. And the idea of

16 having sod is that that prevents materials that might be17 loose -- any dust, that sort of thing -- from being able to18 be blown about, or be able to come into direct contact.19 The sod, the idea of the sod, is that it20 essentially binds the soil tightly to it. So one of the

i21 \ things they were trying to do there was to maintain that22 sod barrier above that soil that had some contamination in23 it.24 If you have got soil that is tightly bound by

i25 ! sod, then the stuff is not going to blow, and it is notI

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102going to be able to -- you are not just going to be able togo and sit on it, or put your hands on it directly, thatsort of thing, without somehow destroying the barrier. Sothat was the idea, was to put it in there.

I am not sure exactly what depth of soil theywere talking about there, in terms of what they were

i proposing. But essentially, they were talking about| putting some soil down, but then also the sod barrier,ij which was, you know, the means, if you will, of preventingiij stuff blowing and coming in direct contact.iI MS, WALLS: Okay. Another thing I would like toj ask, you said you all are not the ones going around withthe papers signing to give this $4,800, or it is anotherpart. Okay. What is the difference in you all? May I askthat, so I can get a clear picture.

MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. We are the U . S .Government, or part of the U .S . Government, and we areoperating under the Superfund law to clean up the sit©-

The people bringing around that piece of paperyou are talking about are representatives of the KoppersCompany. They are one of the potentially responsibleparties that we have fingered as someone we think isresponsible for this site.

They are doing that by themselves. They are notdoing it with our blessing. We cannot sncourag© them to do


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103i1 ' i t . We can't stop them from doing it. This is something2 that they are doing on their own.

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3 f Whether you sign it or not is something that we4 at the Government can't t&li you, or recommend what you5 I should do. The only thing that we can say is that if you6 ; want to know about that, consult an attorney, and thei7 i attorney will tell you what your legal rights ar© and what

|8 ! he or sh© may think you should do.9 i But I want to make it absolutely clear, th©i

10 ! piece of paper coming around for signing has nothing to doi

11 with the U .S . Government.12 MS. WALLS: And so by -- let me ask this, to get13 a clear picture of it, if I may. If some have signed it,14 and if others do sign it, do that mean we are not getting15 anything for the home if we do? We would like to all sell,16 | like one young man say.i17 But what I am speaking of, if we do actually18 sign this paper, do that mean w© ba giving our home up?19 MR. PENDERGAST; I don't know, ma'am, because I20 don't know what is in that paper. I don't know what they21 are asking you to do. What I can tell you is that whatever22 is in there has no bearing on what the Government does23 about cleaning up the site. It only has a bearing on your24 relations, or whatever you want to call that, with the25 Koppers Company

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1041 MS. WALLS: Are some of the peoples here that2 you could ask, or may I ask them? First, let me ask you3 this. Ar? the homes originally loaned to the individuals,4 or do they have some part with the Government? Am X asking5 it right, for you to understand it?67

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MR. PENOERGAST; Are you asking if theGovernment loaned you the money? I guess I don'tunderstand.

MS. WALLS: Well, let ma go back this way.Maybe you can understand it. Here some time ago, I Juetremember what year it was, this young man come around, wasasking about that place over there, when you first startedtalking about this toxin.

And he was asking then whether some had usedGovernment mon&y to buy, or whether they was borrowing itthrough some other way. So when he was asking m@, I wastailing him about I went through Social Security to getthat home over there.

He said, that is what he was trying to find out.whether the Government had some part in it or not.

VOICE: Kind of like an FHA loan.MR. PENDERGAST: Ma 'am, we don't know who this

person was. Larry Wright, who is here, has baen involvedwith the Sup&rfund program going back to before the Rapperssit© was ©v&n part of the Superfund project, and w© frankly


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105don't know.

2 MR. WRIGHT: No. I don't think anybody from the3 EPA has ever come around and asked a question like that. I4 mean, that has no bearing on anything that we are doing5 under the Superfund program. So we wouldn't be asking6 question* like that.7 And just as Jim stated, I just want to3 reiterate, in terms of this paper that you are talking9 about with Koppers, we haven't seen that. We are not a

10 party to that. We can't advise you one way or the other on11 it,12 I mean, it is a legal matter between you and13 Koppers, and the best advice we can give you is that if you14 want legal opinions, you need to consult an attorney. And15 that is -- you know, that ia all we can do.16 MS. WALLS: You know, it is very poorly that we17 black p@ople are not very much educated as you all are. Do18 you understand where t am coming from? That some of youi19 can get -- you know, you can get over on us pretty good.

iI

20 And it ia kind of hard for a parson to yo so21 long, Just trying to buy our homes, and then something like22 ; this cornea up.

!23 i MR. WRIGHT: W©11, 1 am not sure what your24 question is, but, I mean, that is not th© .tr ' ant, is to puti25 .something over on you. Th© intent is to try to inform you,

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106through this meeting, of what we intend to do to get yourinput in terms of what type of cleanup plan you think ismost appropriate for the site. I mean, that is the soldintent of the meeting.

VOICE: Who is going to be monitoring in ourneighborhood? They had an office out there at one time

! [inaudible]. But who is going to be monitoring in our? neighborhood? They had an office out thare, with a lady\ that you could go and talk to If you had a problem, or ai, telephone number.i We would call it, and then there was a girl inthe office that we could really, you know, relate to,

t! someone [inaudible*].! MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. If you want to call usabout something about the site, in the fact sh^et, or that

i! proposed plan, there is my phone number in it. Feel free' to call me.

VOICE: That Is long distance?MR. PENDERGAST: That Is long distance, and if

necessary, ma'am, you call me and give me your number, andI will call it right back and put it on the Government'stab.

During the time in which we take action outthere, in t©ims of cleaning up th© site, we will havepeople out there representing EPA who you can talk to


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107who you can call. And that will be local.

It is this one, ma'am (indicating). Yes, thisone. And towards the back one, there are two names, one rfN'adine McPharson, who is standing there in blue, and myname, Jim Pendergast, and it has our phone numbers. And

, like I say. Just give us a call and tell me your phonenumber, and then hang up, and I will call you right back.

MR. BROWN: Sam© here, Jim.MR. PENDERGAST: Also is Joe Brown from the

Texas Water Commission. Joe's number is not in here, butit is area code -- if you want to writs it down -- Joe willgive you his card. He is from the Texas Water Commission,and you can also call him, and he will call you right backand answer any of the questions you may have.

MS. KING: My name is Brenda King, and I stay at2054 Travis, and I have one of the sites wher© this blackcreosote is in the back yard, and which they covered over.But now you can still -- you can't still see the black, butthe grass what they put over it is dead- That same stripis still across there with nothing on it.

And what 1 want to know, if they do this soilwashing, whan they dig up this soil to claan it, wher© arethey going to get the soil they are going to put there, orare they going to put anything there?

MR. PENDERGAST: Okay, First of all, yes, cleanON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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; 1081 ' £>oil will be put in. As to where it will come from, we2 j don't know right now, but it will most definitely not be3 ! the soil that was taken out. It is going to be clean soil

i4 from outside of the Superfund site.i

5 What I can imagine is that there are places6 where you can go buy clean topsoil for putting in your!7 yard. Those are tha places we are talking about.8 j MS. KING: Okay. And also, about this blacki9 j stuff that is in the yard, are you going to scrape that up

10 out of there?11 MR. PENDERGAST: Yes, ma 'am .

12 ! MS. KING: You are going to scrape that up? And13 also, since the houses are built on top of some of it, like14 it runs from under the houses, what are you going to do15 about that?i16 : MR. PENDERGAST; The contamination that might be

17 j under a house could be of concern in two ways. One is ifi18 you have someone who is, let's say, digging down through19 the house. And we don't see that happening, because your20 house is there.

i21 i The second concern is if the contaminants wouldi22 move down deeper into the aquifer, that is, the23 groundwater, the water I talked about below. And the only24 way that contaminants move that way is if the water can25 leak on top of them and push it down. That doesn't happen


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109underneath the slab houses that you have.

MS. KING: Okay. Are they going to do me any; type of testing around the edges of the house where some ofthat might be?

MR, PEN'DERGAST: We can do that, yes.VOICE: Will this be the last meeting that you

are going to call, like an informative meeting?MR. PENDERGAST: This is going to be the last

meeting before we go and have our decision on what we areiiI going to do on cleaning up the site. AS you remember, wei! are talking about a proposed plan. And after we get allthe inputs, what we have here tonight from the transcript

I and what people may send 'n in the mail, from that we makeij our decision.i\ Now, after that, when we go into actually takingaction, we will have public meetings. Before we go out anddo anything, we will come back to you and tell you what weare going to be doing. If we are going to start a pilottest, we will tell you. We want to keep you informed.

There will also be -- we will also be doing newsreleases, some of these newsletters to get out. One thingwe do ask is that if, by some chance, you haven't give usyour address, you know, please do so so we can make surethis information gets to you.

But yes, there will be additional times in whichON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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110we will come out and discuss what is going on.

VOICE: So these first meetings have been justfact-finding for the site. Right?

MR. PENDERGAST: The first meetings, going backin '84 and '85 , w&r& to tall you what we initially found,and why we were putting up the fence and the sod. Whatthis meeting is is to tell you what we have found after our

! three-year study, and what we propose to do about taking ai! permanent approach to cleaning the site*I• Any meetings after this will be to inform you ini| terms of what exactly -- what is going to happen in termsof like what date we are going to be out in peoples' yards,and thi .igs of concern like that.

Every step along the way in the Superfundprocess, we do go out and we try to keep people informed*

j VOICE: This is you all's last chance for you*ij all's input.MR. PENDERGAST: For the decision that we are

going to make on which way to clean up the soil, yes. Thiswould be the public meeting for that. And, of course, youcan send in your written comment.

I am sorry. Go ahead.MS. BRADFORD: My name is Shirley Bradford, and

I live at 310 Fannin. And I would like to know about thevacant lots. We live next door to one, and there is one

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ill1 across the street. And I would like to know if you have2 checked that, and will you?3 Also, my neighbor -- I think her number is 312,4 mayb© 314 -- got soil put in their yard, and we didn't.

i5 And I would like mine checked again, please6 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. First of all, two7 things. One, you talk about the vacant yards. Yes, we8 will look at vacant yards in the same way as residential9 , yards, if they are the yards within that area of historical

10 • contamination.i

11 i The reason why I say that, there are some vacanti12 I yards in the northeast corner of the site, out there at theii13 end of Travis Street, and out sort of where that ballpark14 is -- out in there. And that is where untreated wood --15 that is, you know, wood without any chemicals put on it --

i16 | was stored.

i17 And those yards, we haven't found contamination,18 so we wouldn't do anything. But the vacant yards in the19 areas that we did find contamination, we would take care20 of.21 Question two was about, would be come back and22 look at your yard. If it is in that area where we found23 the historical contamination, and that runs -- on Fannin24 Street, it starts from about the east side of Fannin Street25 down at the south end and ends up on the west side, kind of


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112i1 ! comes diagonally.i2 i If your house falls within there -- and like I3 | said, I don't remember what all the addresses are -- we4 i would go back and revisit your yard and sample*5 i MR. PRESTON: I have a question I would like to6 ask. My name is Don Preston. I am associated with the7 i Friends United for a Safe Environment. I am not directlyF, affected by this area, but we are all affected in some way.

I9 j And I don't want to intrude on these peoples' problems,

10 because I know they feel like they are sitting on a very11 j dangerous place.12 j When you get through, is this property that we13 are talking about, where the Koppers contamination is -- is14 this going to be as safe as any other lot in the city of

i15 Texarkana?16 MR. PENDEHGAST: Well, I don't know about the17 I other lots in Texarkana. I understand that there is18 another Superfund site. I wouldn't want to speak about19 that one.20 But in terms of as safe, it will be -- in terms21 of what we look at, threats to health, it will be just22 about as safe. And the reason I say just about, it sounds23 wishy-washy, doesn't it?24 When we look at things that are carcinogens, we25 assume that any molecule, one molecule, has a chanc© of


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! 1131 ; causing cancer, even if it is one in, I don't know, a2 ; trillion or r-omething like that.3 We look at a level of something like one in a4 i million, or one in 100,000 chance of having cancer, as5 ' being safe. That is the level we are looking at here, in6 ! terms of saying that from the contaminants in this site, ati7 the worst case -- and that means if you were out there in

I8 the area of the worst contamination, you would have less

I9 : than one chance in 100,000 of having a cancer.i10 ' Now, that is compared to your normal chance of

11 one in three of just being in the United States today. SoI

12 i with that regard, we say, yes, it is as safe. But if13 i someone comes out there, a mathematician, and starts14 looking at the one in 100,000, they would say, well, that15 is a number greater than zero.

16 • MR. PRESTON: 1 know that everyone is very17 [ concerned about that, if it is going to be thorough and18 i complete.

19 There is another thing that I wanted to dwell20 on, and that is the other site that we have here. Ti*e way21 the water table is in this town -- and we talk about the22 aquifer -- th© water table runs toward the state line.23 Everything ends up in Day' s Creek,24 And it goes out into an area where w© have 3725 caaes of cancer out of 350 families, which, despite what


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! 1141 ; you are saying, one person in three coming down with cancer2 at one time in your li':e, seems like a horrendous statistic3 to me, that there is that many people there.4 Now, my point -- what I am really asking is,5 what are you going to do about the groundwater and the6 surface ; "ter to keet) the aquifer clean, and to prevent it

i>7 | going into these water wells and going into Day's Creek,8 which the other site does also?

i9 | And, in addition, Wagner Creek goes right10 through Kerr-McGee, which is sort of notorious. They paid11 several fines for dumping CPCs and other -- CPPs in the12 creek, and it has drained into this area over here that I13 am talking about.14 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. That is a long question.15 I think I got the points.

i16 i First of all, in terms of what we are going to17 do about preventing migration from this aquifer into any13 other areas, other aquifers and water, one of the things we19 are going to do is we are going to clean up the aquifer.20 We are going to pull out the contaminants that21 are in there right now, that are causing migration, out22 from that aquifer, one of the things we looked at in our23 investigations, we looked at Wagner Creek, and we looked at24 it upstream from th© area and downstream to try to see if25 the site was adding anything to Wagner Creek.

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: 115i1 ' And we couldn't find anything when we tested it.i2 | What that means is, there might be something there, but it

3 I is beJow the levels that we can test. Nevertheless, we arej4 i going to clean up that aquifer. Will it -- after we clean5 j it up, we are not going to have that concern about

i6 migration from there.ij7 Now, about the other sites you asked about,8 i Texarkana Wood Preserving, the other Superfund site, that!9 j is a site tnat is just now going intc the remedial

i10 • investigation, which means that the agency involved, in

i11 this case the Texas Water Commission, who is doing the work12 there, is looking at that site to see where the

I13 | contaminants are going.i

14 And if they find health-threatening contaminants15 moving from the aquifer into other aquifers or into other16 creeks, something will be done about it. I don't know ifi17 anything is moving right now. No one knows. That is what18 we are studying.19 In terms of Kerr-McGee, another arm of EPA, what20 we call the RCRA group, the Resource Conservation and21 Recovery Act, they deal with hazardous wastes like we do22 with Superfund, only they deal with companies that are23 still operating, still running the plant at Kerr-McGse.24 And I understand that they are still taking25 action against Kerr-McGee. I don't know what is going to


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, 1161 ! happen with that, but they are taking action.

2 | MR. PRfiSTON: 1 appreciate your response* The2 ! only thing you didn't comment on was 37 people out of 350i

i4 ; with diagnosed cancer -- or was it 28, wasn't it? I begi

5 | your pardon, 28 people out of 350 families. Is this ani6 i obscene number? Is this anywhere within reason?7 DR. PEAUCHAMP: It depends on what types of

!8 ! cancers they are, or what time period you are talkingii

9 j about. If this is every one that you can find over thei10 ; last 20 years or something like that, or the last ten11 | years, that is probably not out of the ordinary, since oiej12 in three will come down with cancer at some time in their

i13 life.

i14 [ MR. PRESTON: This is the current number, I ami!15 i told, by the residents that live there.ii

*6 ; DR. BEAUCHAMP: Is that the current number of17 ! people who they have determined --ii18 ' MR, PRESTON: Being treated, right.19 DR. BEAUCHAMP: — at some time in the past have20 been diagnosed --21 MR. PRESTON: No. They are being treated at22 this moment.23 DR. BEAUCHAMP: Well, but what 1 am talking24 about, the time of diagnosis.25 MR. PRESTON: I hear your question, but I can't


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; 1171 respond to it, because I am really not certain. They just2 Scsid that there is that many being treated for cancer at3 the present time.4 DR. BEAUCHAMP: Well, that -~ without knowing,

3 you know, what types of cancer are involved, and when th<56 . diagnosis occurred, it is hard to estimate whether or not7 that is an unusual number.8 If they all occurred last year, yes, it would be9 an unusual number. If they have occurred over 20 years,

10 ; and there is 20 different types of cancers, then it is not11 I an unusual number.!12 i MR. PRESTON: Okay. I thank you, and I13 I appreciate your responses.14 MS. ROY: My name is Beth Roy, 1 am a resident

15 of Carver Terrace, and I would like to ask you gentlemen,16 with the Superfund that you all are bringing into the area,

i17 can you all tell us tonight, with 100 percent certainty,i18 that once you all come in and work on the area and clean it19 up, that it will be safe over there for us?20 And in next two to three years, or whatever, can21 you all state tonight that something will not come up in22 the picture where they will have to condemn those homes23 over there and the residents have to leave the area? Can24 you all tell us this?25 You all have did all the testing. You have got


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118tne results back from Washington and everything. Can youtell us tonight that we won't have to move out of thosehomes, the Government won't condemn them in the future?

MR. WR1GHT: Well, I don't think anybody can sayanything with 100 percent certainty. I think --

MS. ROY: You said the results you got back was100 percent on the testing that you did over there,

MR. WRIGHT: I don't think you said that.' MS. ROY: Jim told me it was.

MR. WRIGHT: Okay. What we are talking abouthere tonight is a plan for cleaning up the area. Webelieve that when these plans we talk about tonight are

I implemented and the site is cleaned up, it is not going topresent any kind of health hazard to anybody living there.

In terms of guaranteeing three, five, ten, 15,30, 40 years in the future what is going to happen -- I

mean, nobody can give you an absolute guarantee. What Ican say is that, based on the information we have rightnow, which is based on a pretty extensive investigation,that once the plan that we select is implemented, there isnot going to be a health threat associated with the site.We aro going to take the action necessary to alleviatehealth threat.

In terms of what happens three or five yearsfrom now, I mean, nobody can predict that. But based on


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I 119! the things we xnow right now, you know, I can't see anyij reason why there would be any reason to condemn the houses.; MS. ROY: Okay. I didn't catch your name*: MR. WRIGHT: Larry Wright.

MS. ROY: Okay. Tarry, if you was a resident ofCarver Terrace tonight, would you want to continue to livein that neighborhood, if you was a — you have a family, Iam quite sure.

MR. WRIGHT: What we are talking about is goingir\ and taking --

MS. ROY: That is not what I asked you.MR. WRIGHT: Well, let me answer the question.

What we are talking about is going in and taking remedialaction to address a health threat. Okay. Listen to me,please.

What I am saying hers is that I have no reasonto -- would have any concern of living there based on thefact that I know there is going to be action taken toalleviate any health threat, any potential health threat,that exists.

MS. ROY: Okay. There has got to be a potentialhealth threat for Superfund to be coming and be willing' tospend $8 million on the area. There has got to b© a heckof a lot of contamination over there.

MR. WRIGHT: Well, that is why — well, there isON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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1 a potential health threat. That is why we are out there2 : taking action. There --3 ; MS. ROY: But would you want to live there?4 MR, WEIGHT: I said that --5 MS. ROY: You are not answering my question,

i6 MR. WEIGHT: Well, 1 don't live in Texarkana, Ii7 mean, because I live in Dallas, I can t tell you whether 1i

8 would want to live in Carver Terrace. I can tell you that9 I wouldn't object to living there, from a health

10 ! standpoint, based on the actions that we are going to be11 | taking. I can't give you any better answer than that.

i12 i MS. ROY: Would either one of you gentlemen carei13 j to come in on that question?

i14 i DR. BEAUCHAMP: Well, the same thing appliesi15 here. I would not have any objection whatsoever to living

16 i there on the basis of any perceived health risk, you know,i

17 ; from the contaminants that would remain after the site had18 | been cleaned up.19 | MS. ROY: What about before then, the past —20 DR* BEAUCHAMP: Actually, I really don't believe

121 ] that there is enough concern to be -- you know, to warrant22 any sort of a move out or anything like that, even now. I23 don't think that there is any significant amount of actual24 risk, because in order to have a risk of health effects25 from those sorts of chemicals, they have to somehow get


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. 1211 from where they are in the ground into the body.2 And they have to get into the body in3 significant amounts over a long period of time in order to4 cause any harmful effects. And there are only thre© ways5 they can get into the body. They can get into the body6 through breathing, inhalation. Now, they have done airi7 sampling around there, and they have not found any8 - contaminants that are airborne from the site. So that9 rules out that way of the contaminants getting into the

10 body.

11 Another way that they can get into the body is12 : through skin absorption, gstting onto the skin and13 absorbing into the body. Now, the levels that are being14 seen are in the range that, if there were continuous daily15 contact at those levels, it might potentially produce, you16 know, a risk.17 Now, that is in the worst case, assuming a child18 is out there, you know, and constantly rolling around in19 the tarry substances, and continually being exposed and20 absorbing it into the body. That could potentially present21 i a risk.22 That is a worst case situation, I don't think23 that you could find any single child out there who is24 actually exposing himself to that extent.25 MS. HOY; Yes. If you all -- you have kids and

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1221 you live over there for 18 years, your kids are raised over2 there from one year till 18, you are going to tell me you3 , don't think they have a risk o£ being contaminated, playing4 in the -- kids will play outside. They still do. They5 hav© played in those lawns and on the grass --6 i DR. BEAUCHAMP: Just playing out there do^s not7 produce the risk, or the actual health effect, unless there

|8 • is enough of the chemical compound getting into the body9 • through one of the -- and I didn't mention the third one

10 • yet, and that is by eating, or ingestion, of the substance.11 So eating the material could get enough of it

!12 ! into the body to potentially produce a risk.13 I MS. ROY: If you all feel so sure about that,14 why haven't you all had some of the parents over there thati15 i have kids have their kids tested? If you all can state to16 j us tonight that you don't think any of our kids have health17 problems, then why not have -- get some kids out of the

i18 ' neighborhood, line them up for examination, and check themI

19 out and see?20 i DR. BEAUCHAMP: The problem is that the21 compounds involved here are ones that you really can't22 identify with a test in th© body to pinpoint it, as this23 compound from the body, you know, came from that site*24 Some of the breakdown products of the PAHs are25 also — you know, PAHs occur in other things. They occur


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1 ' in food/ you know. Charcoal-broiled steak will have PAHs2 i in it. The tar, you know, just asphalt on the road willi

3 i have PAHs in it. There are all types o£ different sources4 ; of PAHs in th© environment.i5 And there is no way that we can go out and do a6 test which will definitively say that, yes, this child has7 i absorbed chemicals from the site. The test does not exist,

i8 ! because the chemical doesn't stay around in the body.9 MS. ROY: You all are telling us tonight that

10 you all don't think your kids are being contaminated by11 ; living over there in the area and playing in the yards.12 ; You are sitting there telling us that you don't think theyii13 i have no health problems at all.14 And as parents, we know our kids, and we know

i15 i our health condition when we was growing up, and thei

16 j problems that our kids are having, we never had themI

17 ; before.18 DR. BEAUCHAMP: 1 can't say that your children19 i don't have any health problems at ail. I just -*• I don't20 know that.21 MS. ROY: That is right.22 DR. BEAUCHAMP: But --

23 VOICE: It is not only the children [inaudible].24 You have to bring in soil just to grow grass* If grass25 don't want to live there, people --


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124DR. BEAUCHAMP: That is why the EPA is out here

trying to clean the area up, to prevent, you know, anypossibility.

MS. ROY: Okay. If the area can be cleaned up,I was informed by Carver that if something happened and the

; homes was condemned, that the Government would pay for ourhomes. Can you all tell me whether that is true or false?

MR. WRIGHT: I think we have answered thisquestion a couple times, but --

MS. ROY: I didn't hear it.MR. WRIGHT: Okay. We will try to go through it

again. Under the law, we are not talking about condemninghomes. We are talking about doing the cleanup. So I don'tknov; who you think is going to condemn the homes. It isnot the intent of EPA under Superfund to condemn the homes.It is the intent of EPA under the Superfund program to goin and clean up the contamination.

MS. ROY: You don't know whether you are goingto get it cleaned up or not. You can't state that 100percent tonight, so ~-

MR. WRIGHT: Well, we just — no. We are sayingthat we are going to implement a plan to eliminate thehealth threat.

MS. ROY: It took you all three years to getback with the testing, and now is it going to take you


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i2 | area is safe for us to live in?i

3 i MR. WRIGHT: We are saying -- it took us three4 i years to do the remedial investigation and feasibility5 ! study. That is true. We are here tonight to try to keep

I6 this project moving, to make a decision, to get on out7 | there, to do a design, which you have to do before you can8 bid something to actually do the construction.

i9 i That is the goal, is to get out there and do the

10 cleanup. And that is what we are trying to do as quickly11 as we can do it.12 MS. ROY: Have you all ever had an area that the

j13 Government have condemned the homes in?14 MR. WRIGHT: Yes. I believe there was one in15 Missouri. That was a dioxin site.16 MS, ROY: Okay. Tell us what happened.17 MR. WRIGHT: What do you mean, what happened?18 MS. ROY: Who was responsible, and what did you19 all do for the residents of the area?20 MR. WRIGHT: In that particular case, the21 decision was made that -- I don't know that many details22 about it, quite honestly. But the contaminant was23 different than here- The contaminant there was dioxin. We24 are not talking about dioxins at this site.25 Th© decision was mad© -- it was another region,


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126again, you know, outside of the area we work in; it was inMissouri* But the decision was made there that it was moreappropriate to move people out, apparently because thecleanup couldn't occur satisfactorily.

That is about all I can tell you about it. LikeI say, I think -- that is one case. The only other case I

| am aware of, where the Government -- it was not EPA, it wasi; the State of New York -- actually bought people out, wasii; Love Canal.i

Those are the only two -- those are two that Ii! am aware of where large areas were bought out. We have oneiiii Superfund site in Texas where a few homes, where we can'tgo in and get the stuff out without destroying the homes,where there has been a buyout, or is going to be a buyout,I think, of about six homes.

Those are the only ones I am aware of nationallythat that has occurred at, and we are looking at, as Iindicated earlier, some 1 ,200 Superfund sites. And sothere are three examples that I know of nationally wherethat has occurred.

All the rest of the sites that have gone throughthe remedial investigation and feasibility study, that I amaware of, are going on and doing a cleanup, rather thancondemning homes and moving people out.

MS. MCPHERSON: Pardon me, Larry, We are goingON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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: 127i1 : to have to be out of the building by 10 :00 . I am very2 sorry; I was just notified that we will have to be out by3 10 :00 .4 i VOICE: Well, while she is still up there, I]5 ! have got one thing I would like to know, [Inaudible.]i6 What I would like to know --

i7 j THE REPORTER: Ma'am, you will have to come to3 : the mike, please.9 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I would like to kno*', as

10 : she stated, since you are not 100 percent sure about11 anything, and I know that you keep dwelling on this -- how12 did you put it, PHs, toxigens [sic] --

13 MR. PENDERGAST: PAHS*14 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: PAHs, okay. Whatever.15 Causes cancer. Now cancer can be derived from a lot of16 I things. They say cigarettes cause cancer, too, and I still17 i smoke. Maybe I won't ever get it. 1 may be one of those18 fortunate people.19 Thev say the environment with some of the20 herbicides or pesticides will give us cancer, you know,21 that w© could get it that way. But I know that there are a

i22 number of other illness that derives from different23 toxigens in the environment. And cancer Just happens to be24 one of them.25 Now, there are people in that neighborhood that


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has had more than, you know, that number of deaths. And Ij want to know how many would it take, or what catastropheiwould it take, to say, hey, let's stop talking aboutcancer. This man over here has leukemia. This man overhere has liver, kidneys ar© failing, or whatever.

You know, people out there are having to havesurgery on gall bladders, and a lot of reasons and all. SoI am saying, you are dwelling on things about cancer. Youknow, cancer is not the only killer.

You know, 1 hate to die healthy, but I mean,unless it is a car accident of something, I know I am goingto die of old age, I hope, even this toxic and all thisbusiness. Everything you want now is either hazardous or,you know, it is against your health, or it is fattening, or

something.But I want to know, what would be the value if

my grandchild there, say, in 20 years, decides that shedon't want to live at that particular site or thatproperty, sell it? Now, this is going to be a stigma.This is going down on taxes, rates -- I mean, like history.

This is going on paper. And people are going tobe saying, okay, J maybe want to move over there and builda factory. What would be our chances of resale value onthat property after you clean it up?

You know, 1 mean, they messed it up over there.ON THE RECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

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1 129i1 i Now, if someone wanted to come in here and had $8 million,I2 I and wanted to put a factory over there, 1 am sure the3 ; founding fathers of Texarkana would be beating a path to4 ' your door to see how much you would be willing to allow5 i them to go.6 You know, it is not what you know, it is really7 ! who you know, sometimes, and politics and bureaucracy plays

i8 ! a great part in it all.

!9 i MR. PENDERGAST: Ma'am, the question, the first

iI10 ; question you asked about things other than cancer, one of11 the gentlemen previously asked that same question. We did12 : take a look at other effects other than cancer, becausei13 ! there are chemicals out there that do cause effects thati14 ; aren't cancer.

i15 ! The levels that people could eat, or couldI

16 ! breathe, or could come through their skin, are so low of17 , those contaminants that when we take those same levels andi18 I we test our rats, that those rats don't show the organ19 damage.20 And for that reason, that is why we focus on21 cancers, because w© don't see those same levels in the22 other contaminants.23 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, the same thing —24 you know, thig particular -- you know, you say a lab study,25 What about a people study? Because, you know, it is a lot

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1301 i of difference in a human being than in a white mice, or Ii2 should hope so, organically speaking, biologically

i3 i speaking.i

4 MR. PENCERGAST: Yes, i am trying --5 I UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I mean, guinea pigs and6 rabbits and all these things that you test, I want to know7 what the chances are with my biological chemistry and my8 makeup as a member of a homo sapiens person, period, human,9 what my chances are if I can't make it, the resale value of

10 my property after you come in and do your cleanup, 90

11 percent chance then. How will you throw it at that 9012 percent?13 MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. Ma 'am, under the act, we

14 look at health. The act does not authorize us to look at15 resale of property and things like that. That is just the16 way that Congress wrote the law,17 Now, in terms of why do we look at humans or why18 do we look at animals, the reason why is we look --19 obviously, you test animals. You don't test humans. That20 is an ethics question.21 Secondly, about the animals, to be able to see22 organ damage or cancer or sny of. those health effects, you23 hove to give a lot of the chemicals to th© animals, an24 awful lot,25 You can't -- you couldn't imagine, if we took


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• 1311 . the same amount of chemicals and gave it to a human, it2 ] would be like stuffing your mouth with soil all the time.3 | It is just that amount. That is why we look at the4 • animals, because we can test those animals at high levels.5 , UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER; We have had gardens out6 i there before we knew all about this. When we didn't know

i7 : ic, it wasn't as bad as when we, you know, know it. Youi8 | know, ignorance was bliss then.ii9 : People had gardens, and we bought dirt -- it was

10 • expensive -- and hauled it in there just to grow grass.11 i VOICE: [Inaudible] — PCPs could also be used.i12 . If we had a kid, there is such a thing as [inaudible].13 i Every time he go in and out of the house, play in the dirti14 ; and come in -- can't that affect him?15 ; MR. PENDERGAST: Okay. We did look at PCP,

16 which is in one small area in the site. It is not all17 : over, like the creosote. And we looked at the health

i18 ; effects from that, of the kids putting dirt in the mouth,19 coming through the skin, the same things we are talking20 about.21 And at the levels of PCP that you have out therei22 on the site, if a child does that, they are not gcing to23 got enough in their body to have those health effects.24 That is why, like I said, we are focusing on PAHs and25 cancer.


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132VOICE; Excuse me. Officially, I have one

minute to closing time, so you need to try to end it atthis time, because we have to close the building at 10 :00.

I Thank you.

MR. WEIGHT: Okay. Any questions or comments| that you didn't have a chance to ask, pleas© mail them into the address listed in your fact sheet. And wei

! appreciate your coming out, and hopefully this was helpful,Ii and we will be putting together a response to the commentsi- as soon as we get the transcript and have a chance toievaluate all of the comments received, both tonight andthose that will be received in writing. Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 10 :00 p .m . , the public hearingwas concluded. )

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ON THE P.ECORD REPORTING(512)450-0342

CASE TITLE:

HEARING DAT3

LOCATION:

REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

Koppers Texarkana SiteJuly 20, 1988

Texarkana, Texas

I hereby certify that the proceedings andevidence herein are contained fully and accurately on thetapes and notes reported by m@ at the hearing in the above

I case before the Environmental Protection Agency and thatii

i this is a true and correct transcript of the same.i

Date: July 27, 1988

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Official ReporterON THE RECORD REPORTING, INC3102-B West Terrace Dr.Austin, Texas 78731

in the matter of: southwest center texarkana, texas ...i adsorption. following selection of that...

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