EPA,/Superfund Abuse

[Toni Hardy <rogntonihardy@aol.com>]

   In my direct experience with the second largest Superfund in the nation, the Coeur d'Alene Basin, I (and my citizens' group)continue to have serious problems with EPA because of the refusal to acknowledge and deal with issues that have been circumvented for 2 years (10, actually, since actual beginning of this cleanup debacle).  EPA has, we believe, used Superfund as a way to manipulate groups to "cooperate" as well as to hide actions and to avoid permitting processes.  In our area, the cleanup is entirely directed by the PRP, Union Pacific Railroad.  Currently, our citizens' group must submit any and all questions to the PRP (through McCulley, Frick and Gilman, the contractors hired by Union Pacific) and the MFG communications coordinator (Ms. Judy Bolis) then has conference calls with the Governments (State of Idaho, CdA Tribe, EPA) and gets back to us (maybe!) with answers one monthe later.  Our serious concerns over dumping toxic rinsate water, burning creosote logs and other issues requiring immediate response are circumvented until it is too late.  Chuck Findley (former Region 10 Acting Director)referred us to FOIA for answers and information we have requested for two years.  We have been repeatedly denied access to maps and testing information that should be public.  In short, the public right to know has been violated many times, and the lack of permitting and accountability (because it is a CERCLA response) create abuses.

     We are dealing directly with EPA Ombudsman, Robert Martin, and his very capable staff.  We support strongly the continued independent status of his office, because that is our only hope.  Although we have had two complaints go to the EPA Inspector General's Ofice, both have come back to us as "closed matters," but to us, they are far from closed.  In addition, we have hired lawyers, and now have an appeal in Washington, D.C. being heard one level below the Supreme Court.  Our issues of EPA Abuse are serious and multiple, and we assert, also, that EPA has managed a "gag" on news.  This is clear to us because each time we submit information (to the L.A Times, Boise Statesman, Spokesman Review, Coeur d'Alene Press, etc.) our pieces are edited out.  Calls and e-mails to newspeople are unreturned.  The contamination to the democratic process is as serious as the contamination from the arsenic and lead EPA sanctions leaving in place, untested, along the Union Pacific right-of-way.  

     What to do?  Reign in EPA, but expand the independent Ombudsman's office.  We need more oversight.  EPA has too many "internal" reviews and too many "iterative" (no accountability, no notes, no documentation) processes under Superfund.  Well over half the "Administrative Record" is "secret and confidential" and therefore, unavailble to our citizens' group unless we go to FOIA.  Yet these documents are vital to our understanding and our "case" against EPA.