EPA agrees to extend OU1-OU2 comment period
Canda Harbaugh/The Western News From left, EPA officials Victor Ketellapper, Libby team leader; Carol Rushin, acting regional administrator; and Mike Cirian, Libby field leader, tour the cleanup efforts at the Cabinet View Country Club on Wednesday. Rushin also visited the former export plant and the Stinger Welding site.
The Environmental Protection Agency agreed during Wednesday’s City-County Health Board meeting to extend the comment period for the proposed plans of the former export plant and former screening plant by two months.
County commissioner John Konzen, chairman of the City-County Health Board, requested the two-month extension, which gives the public until Dec. 16 to comment on the proposed remedies for the two sites.
The City of Libby, which owns the export plant property, had requested a three-month extension to give the mayor and council time to assemble formal opinions on the proposals and to look deeper into the science involved.
Carol Rushin, acting regional administrator for the EPA, pointed out that a three-month extension might end up pushing the construction schedule too far back. Rushin, who met the board for the first time at Wednesday’s meeting, and team leader Victor Ketellapper agreed to re-evaluate extending the comment period again in the coming months.
County commissioners were not present Wednesday because of obligations in Helena, but Konzen wrote a letter to Rushin concerning the City-County Health Board’s stance on the Superfund process.
The letter essentially said that the City-County Health Board is responsible for the protection of human health, and that the board will work closely with the EPA in enforcing institutional controls to preserve the integrity of remedies as long as the EPA works with the board in choosing remedies.
“Cooperation is, of course, a two-way street,” the letter read. “If the board is going to consider implementing and enforcing regulations as institutional controls supporting the remedy EPA selects for the Libby Asbestos Site, the board will need a high degree of comfort with EPA’s remedy.”
About the letter, Rushin said at the meeting, “I think it’s consistent with where we expect to go in Libby.”
Libby mayor Doug Roll, vice chair of the board, told EPA officials that the proposed plans for the former export plant were “unacceptable,” and that the city “would like something more permanent than a cap.”
Brad Black, Lincoln County health officer and physician for the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, said he wanted more open dialogue with the EPA. He then went on to address what he perceived as shortfalls in the EPA’s scientific methodology.
He wondered how the EPA could come up with a final remedy when a toxicity assessment hasn’t been completed yet. Roll agreed.
“That’s what scares me,” Roll said. “You want to put out a ROD (record of decision), and we don’t know what’s toxic.”
Rushin likened asbestos contamination to that of a landfill. There are uncertainties about the kinds of toxins and amount of contamination in the garbage, she said, so it must be successfully contained to be protective of human health.
“We don’t know all the material in it,” Rushin said, “but we know we need to contain it and break the exposure path.”