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EPA Collects Hazardous Waste From Rubble of South Mississippi

Posted on: Thursday, 15 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Sep. 15--HANCOCK COUNTY -- Large trucks and heavy tractors began rolling on county streets Wednesday, scooping up rubble left behind by Hurricane Katrina.

The storm's winds and walls of water swept across the county, crushing buildings and snapping thousands of trees.

Most of the homes still standing here were flooded with a soupy mixture of sewage, saltwater and chemicals.

Local and federal agencies are joining forces to help clean up the mess.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is collecting hazardous materials, toxic chemicals and old oil in the county, Bay St. Louis, and parts of Waveland.

The EPA, under the guidance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is asking residents to lug their hazardous waste to the public road right of way, and separate them from other debris.

"The main thing is that residents know not to put the hazardous materials in with the other debris," said Dave Schmidt, a FEMA debris specialist. "The EPA will handle the disposal process to make sure each piece is disposed of properly."

Shattered tree limbs, soggy carpet and rusty appliances litter nearly every front yard in the county.

In some parts of the county, entire neighborhoods were wiped out. Streets are now valleys, weaving through mountains of debris.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of collecting "general debris," wood, roof shingles and uprooted trees, in the county, all of Bay St. Louis and parts of Waveland.

Waveland has contracted most of the cleanup work, north of the CSX railway, to individuals. The corps will handle everything south of the railroad tracks.

In Diamondhead, a private community, the cleanup concern is whether FEMA will make an exception from its policy not to pick up debris on private property.

If the federal agency will not enter private property to collect debris, Diamondhead could be forced to pay more than $15 million in cleanup costs.

In 1998, corps contractors were allowed to enter private property to clean up after a hurricane, and Tim Kellar, county spokesman, said the decision is now up to the Diamondhead Property Owner's Association.

"We needed to show that we had done it before," Kellar said. "Now the property owners will need to make the final decision."

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To see more of The Sun Herald, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sunherald.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)

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