(The Lafayette Advertiser posted the following article by Beverly Corbell on its website on May 16.)
EUNICE, La. — After years of waiting, cleanup work at the site of a train derailment in 2000 has finally begun. But, the city of Eunice wants the federal government to intervene, questioning why the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality approved a test plan that does not require the railroad to remove the contaminated soil.
“The DEQ’s track record is not real good at cleanups. I want someone more reliable,” Alderman Jack Burson said.
He cited the example of the Mars Service cleanup effort in Cankton. In that case, Mayor Don Menard and others fought a 20-year battle to clean up contamination from an oilfield waste disposal site.
Of that struggle, Menard said that he had to fight two enemies the polluters and the DEQ.
In a letter sent to the city dated
April 21, the Union Pacific Railroad Co. said it had worked out an agreement with the DEQ to use Eunice as a pilot study for a new, experimental cleanup technique.
Instead of removing the polluted soil, the railroad wants to inject more chemicals into the ground in an attempt to neutralize those already there.
“How can they justify that?” asked Burson. “I know little mom and pop service stations that had to remove every teaspoon of soil and replace it. ”
The City Council voted this week to request that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency get involved and oversee the cleanup effort.
Burson is also unhappy about the proposed two-year timeline for the project.
“They have had three years of chemicals washing into the bayou and streams. Now they want to extend it another two years. Three years isn’t enough? ”
Mark Davis, regional director of public relations for Union Pacific, said from his Lincoln, Neb., office Thursday that the work begun May 5 is only a test and a public comment period would follow.
“Right now we have gotten approval from the DEQ to test a method of cleanup,” he said. “We will sample during this test and them submit those results to DEQ and then we have to submit our overall cleanup method plan. Right now, this is a relatively new procedure which has to have the approval of DEQ before we proceed. ”
The railroad will use the new procedure on a section of the railroad bed 20 feet wide by 30 feet long and 35 feet deep.
The railroad argues that the new technique is less dangerous than removing and transporting the tons of affected soil. Critics argue it is simply less costly.
“When you go through the cleanup process, removing dirt is one option, but you have so many options,” Davis said. “We weigh all those options, and sometimes one is better than the other. We look for the best way. ”
The Eunice problem began on May 27, 2000, when a Union Pacific train derailed near the Eunice Country Club.
A total of 33 rail cars derailed in the accident, 13 of which contained potentially hazardous chemicals that were released into the air, ground and water.
Wilma Subra with Subra Co., an environmental consulting firm in New Iberia, questions the science involved in the proposed cleanup.
“There is a danger of creating new contamination problems and/or increasing the extent of the contamination as a result of the field pilot study,” Subra said.
She said the proposed treatment could increase the rate of contamination into the groundwater and possibly lead to the release of toxic emissions into the air.
One of her concerns is the wide mix of chemicals involved. The railroad has identified 89 different compounds involved in the accident. Some spilled and mixed with other chemicals, some burned, some became airborne, some soaked into the ground and others entered the bayou.
“Because it is such a mixture this is not like a gas station where you are dealing with just gasoline and diesel,” Subra said.
As a result she believes there is no way to know what will really happen with the test plot. She fears the railroad plan will make the people of Eunice test subjects in an unpredictable experiment.
“The DEQ should not have approved this field pilot study. They should have required and Union Pacific and its contractors should have performed a lab bench scale pilot test. ”
She thinks such a lab test is the only safe way to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment and measure any unintended side effects.