Letter to the Editor

Letter print date: June 21, 2001

As we enter the information age of the 21st century we are all faced with cleaning up the legacy of the industrial age. The "brown fields" that were left at hundreds of closed factories, smelters and dumps are usually either ignored or cleaned and fenced off. We are extremely fortunate to have a Superfund site that is close enough to D.C. to act as a convenient photoop showcase for vice-presidents and EPA administrators. We are witnessing a unique and massive restoration effort that will act as a tourist and business magnet, to say nothing of the great improvement in quality of life for Warren County residents.

The EPA and FMC are striving to make this entire process as transparent and inclusive as possible. Meetings are held every 3 months or less, and they go to great lengths to have all of the drivers of this effort available to explain what has happened, what is happening, and where it is going. This is a fantastic example of the role that the federal government should play, where capitalism’s "invisible hand" in not present, where there is no reason why any private company would pay the $140+ million that it will end up costing to restore the site to a useful state.

What a great future this wasteland will end up being. An environmentally correct, high tech office park, 140+ acres of restored and enhanced habitat for wildlife, miles of trails, and several new river access points. The first third of this habitat restoration will be largely done by the end of this summer, and much of the eyesores such as the stacks and rusty water tower will be gone thanks to the EDA.

As a relative newcomer to this community I have been happy to participate in a process that is so productive and beneficial to everyone in Warren County. However, there have been a few minor yet vocal dissenters who have chosen to attack this process through their street theater and petition. Their desire is to have all of the basins sludge trucked off to someone else’s backyard. The logistics of this makes this option impractical and dangerous. The EPA estimates it would take 60 round trips by trucks per day for 8-10 years. The diesel exhaust and accident risk make it far worse for us to dredge up and chuck it all over the fence than to close the basins as designed by the EPA and approved by the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s only vulnerable to flooding when they are open, which they would be for the next decade or so if it’s trucked off (not that anyone would ever find the many millions to pay for it).

Plus, do you really want to smell these open basins for the next decade?

My thanks to those citizens, civil servants, and other concerned parties who are working successfully to turn a dangerous eyesore into a resource that will be a tremendous business, recreational and environmental success story that we well all be proud of.

Scott Dueweke