Wilmington Residents Frustrated As Pollution-Cleanup Process Drags On
By Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl, The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
May 16–WILMINGTON — Two years have passed since the contaminated Olin Chemical property on Eames Street was added to the National Priorities List.
Yet, a handful residents complained last night, there is little to show for it.
“That’s the sad part of this — the amount of time our government has taken to act ‘quickly’ on this,” local activist Debbie Duggan said at a community meeting hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency at Wilmington Middle School. “The residents wanted a quicker intervention from our government — if not local, than the state and if not the state, than the feds.”
“I would like to see something done in a more expeditious manner so that we don’t become a cancer point on the map,” resident Kevin MacDonald added. “These meetings are nice, but I don’t see much effectiveness.”
But federal officials urged residents yesterday to be patient and allow for the bureaucratic wheels of the Superfund program to turn.
“It is an unwieldy process, but it does work,” said Jim DiLorenzo, a regional project manager for the EPA. “We come up with good cleanup plans. I understand the frustration over time. But there are still quite a few gaps out there that need to be filled.”
Chemicals for the rubber/plastics industry were manufactured at Olin’s 53-acre property near the Woburn border from 1953 to 1986. During that time, ownership of the site switched hands from American Biltrite to the Stepan Co. and later Olin, which purchased the property
in 1980.
From 1953 to about 1970, it was common to discharge liquid waste into lagoons at the site, which later leeched into nearby soil and groundwater.
But the effects of the dumping became painfully clear five years ago when contaminated drinking water forced Wilmington to close several of its wells.
Olin, Stepan and American Biltrite have shouldered part of the blame. The three companies reached a settlement with the EPA last July that will pave the way for a remedial investigation/feasibility study to be done.
The study will eventually lead to the formulation of a cleanup plan, which will then require another round of negotiations with the three companies before being implemented.
DiLorenzo warned residents last night that it may well take five to six years before the cleanup plan alone can be formulated.
“Sometimes it’s much longer. Seldom is it quicker,” he said. “You also have to understand that this property will never be pristine again. The groundwater alone will take decades to clean up, at best.”
For now, EPA officials are working on compiling a so-called community-relations plan, which will list the community’s main concerns and help guide the federal agency.
The majority of last night’s meeting thus turned into a brainstorming session for the plan, with residents expressing concerns about everything from private drinking wells and independent water testing to the prospect of a trash-transfer station that has been proposed for the site.
Some residents said they also worry about the contamination extending further into Wilmington as the Superfund work drags on.
“We’ve probably been involved in this for 10 years and now we hear that it will be another five years until the cleanup plan,” said Suzanne Sullivan, a former selectman. “I don’t think we can wait that long. It’s very frustrating.”
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