Carr Results Merit Review

By Dan Davis, The Tribune, Seymour, Ind.

Feb. 10–Federal health officials want to further evaluate soil and water samples from some Carr Township properties. That’s because Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry officials say they found certain locations sampled in spring 2005 pose an indeterminate public health hazard. For the most part, however, metals in most soil and water samples taken then posed no apparent public health hazard, the agency said in a news release this week. The agency, part of the Centers for Disease Control, said further evaluation is warranted to identify unknown materials and to determine the specific compounds of copper, nickel, sodium and calcium that were found in some locations. “To protect public health, we felt that an independent investigation of the possible presence of chromium hydroxide sludge in the local water and soil was needed before starting an evaluation of the Rumpke landfill and adjacent Gideon T property,” ATSDR’s Clayton G. Koher said. Koher is the agency’s regional representative. He gave no timeframe for concluding that evaluation or when the agency might begin its evaluation of the Gideon T and Rumpke landfill properties. The spring 2005 tests were a result of the agency accepting a petition in August 2004 from John Asher of Norman. He was concerned substances seeping from Rumpke’s Carr Township landfill might be harming the health of area residents. Asher could not be reached to comment for this story. Crystal Kirkland, corporate communications coordinator for Rumpke, said in a telephone interview this week the just-released report has little impact on the company’s landfill northwest of Medora since “none of the testing was on our property.” Asher said in June 2005 he made an earlier canvas of area residents, leading him to believe incidents of illnesses such as cancer in the area of the landfill were greater than should be expected. That prompted his petition to ATSDR. Community meetings in Medora in June 2005 exposed the agency to public concerns about the sludge, which was hauled to the Gideon T property from the now defunct Medora plastics factory before 1982. Area residents added they were concerned that some of that material was also dumped in ravines and low areas and applied to farm fields in Carr Township. The Gideon site is a T-shaped area surrounded by Rumpke’s landfill. The sludge was taken there before Rumpke owned the landfill under permitting of the state, before the creation of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and more stringent regulations for disposing of hazardous materials. Rumpke hopes to buy the Gideon T property and move that sludge to a different area of the landfill if its expansion permit is granted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. That expansion request has been both opposed and supported by two different community groups and has faced challenges at the local and state levels. The request is still pending with IDEM, Kirkland said. A complete copy of ATSDR’s exposure investigation report is available for review at the Jackson County Public Library offices in Seymour and Medora.

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