Toxaphene Tests Futile

Retesting urged for Superfund sites, neighboring areas

By JACK MORSE

The Brunswick News

About a half-dozen hazardous material sites in Glynn County may be more toxic - and more dangerous - than the federal Environmental Protection Administration previously believed.

Since the mid-1990s, the EPA Division 4, based in Atlanta, has used a test for toxaphene at Glynn County Superfund sites that it insisted was accurate.

The EPA used the system, called the Toxaphene Task Force Method, or EPA Method 8081, at areas such as an old Hercules landfill site where, in the late 1970s, the company disposed of waste material from producing toxaphene, a now-banned pesticide and a suspected carcinogen.

The EPA's Office of Inspector General noted in a recently released ombudsman report that the EPA's testing method used to monitor levels of toxaphene in groundwater at the Hercules 009 landfill site, located on Benedict Road and Georgia Spur 25, is "inadequate."

Kevin Pegg, technical adviser to the Glynn Environmental Coalition citizens group and a professor of biotechnology at Florida Community College in Jacksonville, said he had concluded long ago that the testing was inadequate.

"We've been telling them for years that it was flawed," he said.

In a separate technical assistance report funded by the EPA and written for use by the Glynn Environmental Coalition, Pegg noted that the EPA 8081 method used to test for contaminants is apparently used only in Glynn County.

"The method is not recognized by other governments or by researchers as a useful method because it under-reports the actual toxaphene concentration," Pegg wrote.

The Glynn Environmental Coalition has said that retesting should be performed at the 009 landfill site and at a Terry Creek site, both of which were once used by Hercules to dispose of waste material.

Because of potential health threats at the areas, both are on the EPA's list of Superfund sites. The environmental coalition said retesting also should be performed in neighborhoods around Hercules and at at least three other landfills in Glynn County - T Street, Fourth Street and Old Sterling.

The EPA ombudsman's report noted an example of Method 8081's failure to accurately measure contamination in 1997. When toxaphene levels in fish from the Terry Creek Superfund site were tested, no quantities of the toxin were found. When the same fish were reanalyzed in 2001 using an alternate method, toxaphene was found at levels up to 52 times the EPA's "do not eat" level.

Pegg said he can't yet comment on how serious the situation may be.

"At this point in time we don't know what the levels of toxaphene are in the environment because they haven't been accurately tested," he said. "It isn't until we have the testing and readings that we can assess the risk."

Bill Owens, president of the Glynn Environmental Coalition, however, found the ombudsman report to be encouraging.

"I think it's good news," he said. "Not that it's great that we've got toxaphene everywhere. But now that this news from the inspector general has come out, they can no longer pretend that efforts in the past have been adequate. Now we can begin to do the right thing."

The EPA's Division 4 has until Dec. 23 to respond to the report, which was issued in late September. The response must include a corrective actions plan.

"We're looking at (the ombudsman report) piece by piece and will be responding to any concerns or issues in that report," said Laura Niles, EPA spokesperson.