(The following story by Doug Myers appeared on the Abilene Reporter-News website on June 3, 2009.)
ABILENE, Texas — Two and a half million cubic yards of toxic sludge is being dredged from the Hudson River in New York, and soon it will be transported via rail to a landfill roughly 225 miles west of Abilene in Andrews County.
What is uncertain is whether the railcars carrying the materials will pass through Abilene.
But if Neil Carman — clean air director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club — is correct, there is a high likelihood that it will be transported through the Key City.
“I think it’s a very good chance it will,” Carman said, noting that there is a major rail hub in Dallas-Fort Worth and rail lines move more east and west than north and south.
“They’re going to get to West Texas as fast as possible,” he said.
Others, including city of Abilene officials, aren’t saying.
“We do know what travels by/through Abilene in each car by rail,” said Jim Bryan, the city’s emergency management coordinator.
However, because the federal government considers it “sensitive security information,” Bryan said information such as that of the path of the toxic sludge cannot be released.
Plans are for the toxic sludge to be transported about 2,000 miles to a facility owned by Waste Control Specialists about 30 to 40 miles west of Andrews and near the Texas-New Mexico border.
While dredging operations have already started, Carman said he expects transporting of the sludge to begin the latter part of the month or in early July.
General Electric has contracted with four railroads — Canadian Pacific, CSX, Union Pacific and Texas-New Mexico Railway — to carry the dried sludge that is tainted with 1.3 million pounds of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Union Pacific tracks run through Abilene.
For three decades, the chemicals reportedly flowed into the upper Hudson River from two GE factories before being banned in 1977.
PCBs are considered dangerous. High doses have caused cancer in animals and are considered probable carcinogens for humans.
Carman said a major concern is the transportation of the sludge will involve open top railcars with “just a plastic tarp” covering the materials and that potential health problems could result if a train carrying the sludge derails.
“And people in moonsuits are going to show up to clean it up,” Carman said.
But Mark Behan, a spokesman for GE, said the sludge is a “dried cake solid” and the railcars will be sealed and capped, per railroad requirements for safety.
Behan said GE is following the transportation and disposal recommendations of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ultimately, Behan said, the company did a nationwide search and found a site with appropriate regulatory state and federal approval, that had a “good environmental safety record,” and that was accessible by rail.
Behan said he didn’t know the path that the trains carrying the sludge planned to take, adding that would be up to the railroads that GE has contracted with.
Rickey Dailey, a spokesman for WCS, said WCS isn’t responsible for getting the sludge to the site — only after it gets to the WCS gate.
Dailey said the Andrews County site is EPA licensed and has the ability, after 12 years of operation, to “safely dispose of this soil.”
In a recent New York Times article, WCS Vice President Tom W. Jones III said plans are for the sludge to be wrapped in heavy plastic, placed on open railcars and transported to the West Texas site in trains at least 80 cars long.
After arriving at the landfill, Jones said, the bags will be opened and the sludge will be transferred to massive mining trucks, all in a building aimed at keeping the polluted soil from breezes. The sludge will be dumped into a red clay pit — 75 feet deep and lined with heavy polyethylene — before being covered with a minimum of three feet of clay.
Carman and other environmentalists have expressed concern about the landfill’s proximity to a massive aquifer, while the EPA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have agreed with WCS that it is appropriately run and doesn’t pose such a threat.
Even so, Carman said he believes the train routes should be made public — especially to fire and police departments.
“I think it’s regrettable that they’re keeping this secret,” Carman said.