(The following story by Diane Dietz appeared on the Register-Guard website on July 12.)
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Union Pacific Railroad will put its own spin tonight on groundwater pollution that’s drifting under Eugene homes and neighborhoods.
At a meeting for the public, the railroad’s environmental specialists will address the issue of chemical solvent vapors in the crawl spaces of residents’ homes, plus other related topics that neighbors raise, said James Barnes, Union Pacific’s spokesman in Omaha, Neb.
“The purpose of the event is obviously to provide an opportunity for people to ask questions as well as to receive information about what steps are going to take place,” Barnes said.
But members of the public should take note: The views expressed by the railroad’s experts are not necessarily the views of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which is overseeing the railyard cleanup.
Agency officials will attend the meeting but on the sidelines, said Greg Aitken, DEQ cleanup manager on the railroad project.
“Union Pacific has specifically wanted to do this meeting to get their messages across,” Aitken said. “We don’t really want to be a part of that to the extent those messages aren’t something that we’ve bought into yet – or agreed with or proved.”
The DEQ has worked toward a cleanup of the railyard as well as the underground pollution plumes for more than a dozen years.
One of several contaminants in the groundwater is trichloroethylene, a solvent that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences – in separate analyses since 2001 – found to be highly likely to cause cancer.
Union Pacific entered into a voluntary cleanup agreement when it acquired the railyard in a merger in 1996.
The company is trying to make the cleanup transparent to the public, Barnes said.
“Union Pacific has been cooperating with the DEQ to investigate the nature and extent of the environmental quality concerns, potential risks both to human health and the environment, so there are no limitations to the questions that can be asked. We’ll certainly do our best to respond,” he said.
But the railroad has incentive to reduce cleanup costs and avoid potential legal liability, and sometimes that’s in conflict with the DEQ’s role, Aitken said.
“We don’t yet agree, for instance, with Union Pacific’s inclination to minimize the extent of this problem in terms of (solvent) vapor intrusion to two homes,” Aitken said.
The contaminant was found in eight homes, and tests are under way on 30 homes, including several of those originally tested.
The DEQ hasn’t finished its analysis of all the risks presented by the pollution, so the agency isn’t yet ready to make a public presentation.
However, Aitken said he can try to answer specific questions from the agency’s point of view.
“Certainly if somebody says to me `Do you agree with what Union Pacific just said?’ I can say `Yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘I can’t say yet.’ ” Aitken said.
In a related issue, Union Pacific is asking a federal health agency to withdraw its May finding that the contaminants in crawl spaces constitute a public health hazard.
That finding was issued by the Superfund Health Investigation and Education program, an arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a recent letter, the railroad blasted the health investigation, saying it’s based on “a highly selective, incomplete and misleading presentation of site data; utilizes fundamentally flawed methodologies of risk assessment; and relies on interpretations and assumptions concerning theoretical exposures that are contrary to the actual data and scientific literature.”
The agency is preparing its response to the assertions.