EPA regional admin to visit Libby June 4
By JOHN BLODGETT
The Western News
Editor’s note: The story was updated June 4 to reflect the new location of the public meeting.
Doug Benevento, Region 8 Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency out of Denver, is coming to Libby June 4 to tour the Asbestos Superfund site and meet with county officials.
His visit’s timing was set to coincide with a June 5 visit, requested by Sen. Jon Tester, of the Superfund site in Columbia Falls, said Mike Cirian, the EPA’s Libby onsite project manager.
According to an agenda Crian provided, Benevento will tour the operable units of the Superfund site and then meet with the Lincoln County Commission and the LIncoln County Board of health. The public meeting is set for 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Commission meeting room at the Venture Inn at 1015 9th St, in Libby.
County Commissioner Mark Peck said the visit is Benevento’s first to the Libby Superfund site since he was appointed regional administrator last October.
Peck said the meeting is an opportunity to “get clarification on a lot of issues” surrounding the Superfund site, “primarily who has liability for materials left behind in homes.”
“That’s a huge one,” he said.
Earlier this year, a City-County Board of Health committee Peck sits on — the Institutional Controls (IC) Steering Committee — released a position statement asserting that “property owners will not bear the cost of any future issues” related to the site.
The county’s position was predicated by seemingly inconsistent and infrequent communications by the EPA regarding who is responsible for the monitoring and maintenance — and any associated costs — of the cleanup remedy the agency has spent years putting in place.
Two other concerns Peck noted were the status of an EPA investigation into Lincoln County’s handling of a previous grant agreement with the agency — an investigation that the agency has been tight-lipped about — and what Peck described as a divide between the EPA and Montana department of Environmental Quality on the ongoing transition of site management from the former agency to the latter.
“I’m not a happy camper that, 19 years into this thing, they’re not aligned,” Peck said.