[edgeywood]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=28173.54

Saturday, December 19, 2009

'It's still in the ground'
Pines residents still not certain of coal ash’s effects

Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer


PINES - Year after year, toxic chemicals from coal ash dumped in the town of Pines spread under residents' feet. What it has done to their surroundings, their children, themselves, the residents of Pines are still unsure.

All they can do is wait.

"They gave us money and water, but it's still all in the ground," said Ed Campion, who moved to Pines in 1976 with his wife, Elaine. "We can't get away from it."

Between 1975 and 2001, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. disposed of 1.5 million tons of coal ash waste in Yard 520. It sits just inside the town limits, near the juncture of U.S. 20 and U.S. 520, the state's shortest highway. Brown Inc., a local contracting firm, owned the landfill, and trucks from its subsidiaries hauled the coal ash there from NIPSCO's Bailly and Michigan City power plants.

The landfill was shut down after high levels of boron, molybdenum and arsenic were detected in residents' well water. Those contaminants, all found in coal ash, were slowly seeping into the groundwater and possibly collecting in the soil.

The Pines groundwater plume, as it's called by the Environmental Protection Agency, was designated a Superfund Alternative site in 2003. The contaminated groundwater is thought to be creeping north from the town toward Lake Michigan. Now Pines' future - and maybe even that of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore - rests on the outcome of an investigation into the risks the residents and land face from coal ash pollution and what can be done to correct them.

The first part of this is a remedial investigation, which will describe how much of these contaminants are present and where they may be headed. Expected to come to a close at the beginning of 2010, it will set the stage for the rest of the project. But it's only the first piece of the puzzle, and it's been a long time coming.

"Sometimes it just seems like NIPSCO and Brown (Inc.) are running the clock out and waiting for us to give up, but we won't. We can't. There's too much at stake," said Paul Kysel, vice president of People in Need of Environmental Safety, a resident group that tracks the issue.


Yard 520 isn't the only place the coal ash ended up. Trucks full of it were used to build and fill roads throughout the town, even used in place of dirt to even out land for homeowners.

"Now look at it. Nothing will even grow on it," said Campion, whose home sits just 40 feet from one of the largest in-town deposits of coal ash - his backyard. Since no one seemed to object to the coal ash in the years after he moved to the Pines, he thought it would be all right if he used what is called bottom ash, the sludgy remains left at the bottom of coal combustion chambers, to fill in the swampy parts of his half block of land along East Johns Avenue.

Campion scrapes his foot along the top of the ground, and the microthin layer of moss and grass immediately gives way. Underneath is just bottom ash, which holds little nutrients for growth. It also holds no roots. Even the thick roots of seemingly sturdy volunteer trees spread outward along the ground's surface instead of delving into the soil.

"I can push one of them trees down right now if I want to," he said. And, even at 63 years old with severe arthritis, he can.

This is the land on which the Campions' nine children ate, played and slept. They all drank the water from their well, which may have harbored an ever-growing amount of contaminants. Indiana Department of Environmental Management records as far back as 1985 show unsafe levels of arsenic, chromium and lead in the water of monitoring wells surrounding the landfill.

But even though theirs was one of about 270 homes to receive city water service as part of a consent order with the EPA, they'll likely never know what their water contained - their well was never tested. Neither were many other residents' wells, said Jan Nona, a founding member of the P.I.N.E.S. group.

"Instead of testing all of our wells, NIPSCO and Brown just decided to give everyone in certain parts of the town water service, and others didn't get it," Nona said.


Heading up the work at the Pines groundwater plume is international engineering and consulting firm AECOM - paid by NIPSCO and Brown Inc., which are the potentially responsible parties in the coal ash contamination. That is typical of Superfund Alternative sites, where those who claim potential responsibility for the pollution sign consent orders to pay for the work that needs to be done, said Tim Drexler, Environmental Protection Agency project manager. Close to 70 percent of the EPA's listed site projects in the region are led by the people or companies responsible for the pollution, he said.

"This way, taxpayers aren't paying for the work and it doesn't drain our funds," Drexler said. "The whole idea of (the Superfund Alternative designation) is to move along a resolution and get cleanup done."

The P.I.N.E.S. group didn't get to participate in that decision, Kysel said, because they weren't recognized as an "interested party" until after the consent orders were signed, after all the work plans were already written.

"We got so caught up in fighting the fight, we haven't really thought about how the EPA determined it was in their interest, or in the public's interest, to do it this way," he said.

Communities generally don't have any say on how a site is listed, Drexler said. Superfund Alternative sites are not put on the National Priorities List, which contains areas with known or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants throughout the United States and its territories. Because of this, Kysel said NIPSCO is able to maintain its credit rating, and the designation won't affect its insurance or borrowing power.

"There is financial gain for NIPSCO to keep it this way," he said.

While those things are true, NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer said the potentially responsible parties signed the consent orders because they wanted to participate in the cleanup.

All reports generated by AECOM go through a review process with the EPA, Drexler said, as well as with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the National Park Service and a consultant for P.I.N.E.S. This process takes a lot of time; for instance, two revisions to the remedial investigation have taken more than 18 months, with each group's scientists providing their own input.

Both Kysel and Charles Norris, principal scientist with GeoHydro, the firm hired by the P.I.N.E.S. group to interpret the scientific jargon and lengthy reports generated during the investigation, say AECOM has held up the process by continually submitting "erroneous data."

"They submitted the first draft, and our consultants sent them more than 20 pages of comments. The EPA echoed those comments," Kysel said. "Yet when the second draft came back, it was basically the same thing."

Kysel is convinced its because NIPSCO and Brown Inc. want to be found liable for as little damage as possible. But Meyer said NIPSCO and Brown Inc. have made all the changes so far that the EPA has ordered.

"We have done nothing to delay the process, so to speak," he said. "We feel this has been an open, collaborative process. It's all about implementing a remediation plan to reduce environmental impact going forward."

Results from this investigation won't be made public until it is finalized because all drafts are considered confidential, Drexler said. But 13 pages of his final corrections, sent Nov. 3 to AECOM, call into question the extent of damage to the groundwater, environment and residents claimed in the report, as well as its sources (see Final Corrections).

"Obviously the work product wouldn't be the same if we produced it," Drexler said. "But this is a cooperative effort. If in the end we don't agree with what they produce, (the EPA) will write a supplement to the investigation so the conclusions are valid."

It will be very interesting to see what AECOM does with this, Kysel said.

"All these changes are things our consultant and the National Park Service have been pushing for since Day 1," he said. "We're just supposed to be reporting back to the community in layman's terms what's going on, but we've been forced to take an activist role. We're asking questions, pushing back, criticizing every step of the process. We have to."


Nearly 40 homes in town were not hooked up to city water, Nona said, which was done for 270 homes at NIPSCO and Brown Inc.'s expense at the beginning of this project in 2004 and 2005. The wells of homes that were not included were not deemed to be at risk of contamination, even if they were only a short distance from homes that were, she said. But most of these homes, like that of David and Shirley McColpin, still receive shipments of bottled water every other week in 5-gallon jugs, paid for by NIPSCO and Brown Inc. The companies have spent $3.6 million so far on the water hookups and continued supply of bottled water, Meyer said.

"That bottled water is just a precautionary measure until the investigations are complete," he said.

The McColpins live a half block west of Birch Street, which was used as a "cut off" point in town for city water.

"We've basically accepted it for what it is," said Shirley McColpin. "There's only so much you can do, but there are a lot of things that don't make sense about what's going on here. This is one of them."

Their well was tested twice before they started receiving bottled water, McColpin said, but she was never told the results. Still, she is hopeful the companies will do the "right thing" in taking care of the pollution they created.

"I'm satisfied that they've done all they can do and trust that they'll take our health into consideration in the future," she said.

However, even if NIPSCO and Brown Inc. are found to have irreversibly impacted Pines' residents and their environment through the Superfund Alternative process, it would be difficult to take the companies to court. A civil suit brought against the companies by nearly 100 Pines residents seeking compensation for damages and possible health issues was resolved by a monetary settlement in May 2007. The amount of money paid out in the La Porte County suit was confidential, Meyer said, and residents signed contracts prohibiting them from speaking about it. Those residents are also prohibited from seeking any more compensation for damages in the future.

The McColpins, Campions and Nona were all plaintiffs in that civil suit.

"Was it worth it? No," Nona said. "I signed on because of a moral obligation to protect my community, I helped find people who would be affected by this. I didn't even want their dumb money. If they had any idea how much money I've spent on copy paper, postage and gas on this ... let's just say there's been little profit."

It makes no difference, she said, because the coal ash is still in the ground - and it will likely keep releasing contaminants for years to come.


Final Corrections

A selection of the Environmental Protection Agency's final corrections to the remedial investigation at the Pines Groundwater Plume Site:

• "You have insufficient evidence that all groundwater flow from area of investigation flows into Brown Ditch system unless you are including wetlands of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as part of 'related wetlands' to the ditch system." - There is no evidence right now that groundwater has become contaminated within the IDNL, said project manager Tim Drexler, but there is a question regarding polluted soil. "This is something we expect them to follow up on in the risk assessment," he said.

• "There are sufficient gaps in the monitoring well network." - The EPA wanted AECOM to remove any "absolute language" that contaminants have not and will not be found in certain places, Drexler said. "We haven't made the determination on a need for more wells, but there are not enough of them to say with certainty 'This is where it is all going,'" he said. "It's too early to make statement like that, we're looking for clarification."

• "Data shows that groundwater migrating laterally away from Yard 520 encounters REDOX conditions and/or sorptive materials that remove arsenic...Arsenic concentration is, therefore, increasing in soil at some location." - Iron is likely the element that is removing arsenic from the water, Drexler said, but it is collecting somewhere. They need to find where it is going and the potential risks from an accumulation of it in the soil, he said.


WHAT'S NEXT?

The next step for the Town of Pines, which EPA project manager Tim Drexler said is already underway, is a human health and environmental risk assessment, which measures what problems these identified contaminants can cause and defines "unacceptable risk." For residents, that means the probability of developing cancer. For plants and animals, its whether they will have an adverse affect on species.

"The rest of the process is about remedying the risks that are identified," Drexler said. "We will develop a preferred alternative from a list, present it to the public in the form of a hearing, then generate a record of decision."

Intensive monitoring in the years to come will be required to make sure the plan is followed, he said.

[Southsider2k12]

I am really glad to see Alicia picked up this story. This topic should have been screaming headlines for years now. It is better late than never!

[edgeywood]

I am really glad to see Alicia picked up this story. This topic should have been screaming headlines for years now. It is better late than never!

Excellent follow-up in today's N-D!
http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=27750

Non-profit group upset scientists still not paid
Disagreement involves PINES, utility, contractor

Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer

Monday, December 21, 2009


Editor's note - This is the last in a series of articles on the Pines groundwater pollution issue.

PINES - Scientists on behalf of Pines residents who examined groundwater pollution caused by coal ash in the town are still owed more than $86,000 for their work, but the companies who would be responsible for the bill say they won't pay it.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co., Brown Inc. and its subsidiaries who are paying for the investigation into the pollution at the Pines' Superfund Alternative site say the work was done outside of the agreement it signed with People in Need of Environmental Safety, a resident group formed to track the groundwater issue.

The agreement, called a Technical Assistance Plan, was meant to provide money for PINES to hire scientists who could interpret reports for them, said Tim Drexler, Environmental Protection Agency project manager for the site.

"The EPA has a similar process for its Superfund sites, where it pays the funds," he said. "It's so the community can be involved in the process."

It was the first agreement of its kind in the region, if not the country, to have potentially responsible parties directly pay community groups' consultants, Drexler said. Superfund Alternative sites - paid for by the people or companies who created the pollution to be cleaned up - are a relatively new concept themselves, he said.

"At the time the TAP was generated, there was no guidance, no model for development," Drexler said. "Unfortunately, that uncertainty has resulted in this issue."

The original terms of the agreement allowed for the group's consultants, Denver-based Geo-Hydro Inc., to be paid up to $50,000 for their work. That money was exhausted in July 2008, but Geo-Hydro scientist Charles Norris kept working on the issue with the full knowledge of the EPA, said Paul Kysel, PINES vice president.

"The EPA knew the exact moment we exhausted our funds; that moment was months ago," Kysel said. "They were in frequent contact with Geo-Hydro asking for their opinions and work, using their expertise after the clock ran out."

An amendment was written for the agreement this spring that would provide another $50,000, but it was not signed by PINES until May. By that time, most of Geo-Hydro's work was already done. The unpaid portion of their bill amounts to $86,409.90, Kysel said.

"They are honest-to-goodness, altruistic guys who have stood by us. They have done phenomenally good work and should be compensated for that," he said. "Their work was done under the understanding there was no money left and with the promise things would be worked out."

NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer said because this work was done while the agreement was technically expired, the companies have no obligation to pay for it.

"It's important to provide funds for a community group to have their opinions heard and be involved. I think we all have the same goal in mind. But there was a process set in place for those funds and that process wasn't followed," he said. "It would have been smoother had they waited to spend the money."

The deadlines were such, Kysel said, that waiting was impossible. The work had to be done then for the process to keep going.

"The folks at NIPSCO and Brown have accused us of playing a game with this," he said. "Well, it is a game, a stupid game we're being forced to play and we're not even holding the cards."

The non-profit PINES certainly doesn't have that kind of money, Kysel said. Also, NIPSCO and Brown Inc. fully reimburse the National Park Service and Indiana Department of Environmental Management for all their work on the project.

"What is it about our group that makes us different?" Kysel asked.

As of the end of 2008, NIPSCO and Brown paid out more than $3 million to AECOM and other agencies for the work that has gone into the investigation so far, including water and soil sampling and the production of reports, Drexler said.

Meyer said the companies would not confirm that amount.

"That amount of money makes ours seem insignificant," Kysel said.

Norris said he is hopeful the issue will be resolved soon.

"Not getting paid is not a business model we can follow very much and stay in business, but we have the luxury of being flexible with these issues," he said. "We'll let all of these processes work their way through. We have talked with the PINES group about starting chili suppers and bake sales, but if they have to advertise 40 of those to make $2,000 each, I don't think that's the kind of publicity NIPSCO would want."

Now, PINES is even having trouble getting NIPSCO and Brown Inc. to release the second round of funding for the upcoming human health and environmental risk assessments because its non-profit status lapsed with the state, Kysel said. That paperwork should be completed within two months, he said, but time is of the essence.

"They will need time to review the risk assessments before comments are due," he said. "I just feel like (NIPSCO and Brown) don't want us involved, and they'll find any way to make that happen."

Kysel thinks NIPSCO and Brown are only stalling because all money given to a recognized non-profit is tax-deductible. But Meyer said NIPSCO and Brown Inc. are simply following the rules of the agreement. They are leaving it up to the EPA to make a determination on the money that is already owed, Meyer said.

"We'll continue to do as directed by the EPA, and if that's their direction, we'll follow it," he said.

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=27767

Our Opinion:
The Issue:

Some residents of Pines think more must be done.

Our Opinion:

NIPSCO and Brown Inc., which landfilled ash, have responsibility for protecting public health and safety.
Coal ash
Power plant ash pollutes Pines

Editorial

Through the nation's history, it has taken years - often decades - to understand the extent of pollution from industrial processes. That was the case in the disposal of coal ash from NIPSCO power plants in Michigan City and at the Bailly generating station in Porter County.

If anyone realized the potential contamination posed by the ash, it wasn't openly discussed years ago. Nor was the problem addressed until nearly the end of the 25 years during which 1.5 million tons of ash from the power plants was dumped at Yard 520, a landfill in Pines.

The fact that the town used ash as roadbed for town roads, and some residents used it as fill in low areas, only speaks to how little everyone understood about the possible pollution. After monitoring wells were installed, boron, molybdenum and arsenic were found in the ground water - chemicals associated with coal ash.

NIPSCO, along with Brown Inc., which owns the Yard 520 landfill and trucked the ash there, have accepted a level of responsibility for dealing with the potentially dangerous levels of chemicals in the groundwater. At their expense, city water was extended from Michigan City to 270 homes in Pines to assure them of clean drinking water. Other homes, though, were left out, but get bottled water.

Those companies are to be commended for offering that help. But today, the coal ash remains in the landfill, in the streets and in some lawns in Pines, and a group of residents is at odds with the companies over payment of a bill submitted by a research consultant that has monitored the process for the residents.

More important, a long-term solution for the problem remains to determined. That could involve more legal liability for NIPSCO and Brown, and immense costs.

However, public health must be protected, and the companies must continue to accept the responsibility for what is required.

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...&TM=53252.6

Series on Pines very comprehensive
I thank The News-Dispatch for allowing your excellent reporter, Alicia Ebaugh, to create the two-day series on the Pines Alternative Superfund. She wrote a very comprehensive account of the issue. She spent a lot of time, interviewing people from all aspects of the story, gathering data, and doing research to produce the complete story.

One important issue that Alicia examined is the Alternative Superfund process. In the traditional Superfund, the taxpayers pay for the investigation and cleanup. Under the Alternative Superfund process, the Potentially Responsible Parties agree to pay, but they assume no blame and they are somewhat protected from liability.

I think that the problem with the Alternative Superfund process is that the Potentially Responsible Parties not only pay for the investigation, but they actually hire and directly pay the investigators. This results in the fox watching the henhouse situation. There is a natural conflict of interest for the hired investigator between producing an objective scientific report and satisfying their employer. This conflict has been obvious to those few who examined the draft reports. The many errors and omissions in the reports, and the repetition of those errors in subsequent drafts, caused the $87,000 extra expense to the community group.

Another important issue is the EPA's insistence that draft documents be kept secret. The public should be allowed to examine all documents and they should have an opportunity to comment on them throughout the entire process. Some errors are obvious, but without a sufficient number of examiners, many of those errors slip through. A faulty remedial investigation will result in inadequate cleanup and increased risk to the safety of the public and the environment of the area.

Thanks to Alicia Ebaugh and everyone at The News-Dispatch, you are one of the very few sources for local information.

Larry Silvestri

Michigan City

[edgeywood]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=27892

Pines water problems still not solved

Tuesday, December 29, 2009


The article published in The News-Dispatch, written by your staff writer Aicia Ebaugh, was absolutely fantastic. It was also very timely in that we will shortly be entering the Human Health & Ecological Risk Assessment phase of the EPA's Alternative Superfund process.

Unfortunately there already have been rumblings that there is no risk. Municipal water has been supplied to a lot of the area and that solves the problem. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what a lot of the residents in the Pines think. They have clean water.

What they forget is that there are still approximately 125 homes in the area not getting municipal water, many of which have been tested and have high levels of contaminants in their well water. Then there are the ecological risks. The aquifers in this area are pretty much going directly into the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Brown Ditch, Kintzle Ditch and finally Lake Michigan. This problem must also be addressed.

The responsible parties's consulting firm has been less than up front. However, why should they be? We aren't paying their bill. The responsible parties are. Then when we have our reputable consultants protect and keep us informed they refuse to pay for their expertise. Even after most of the government agencies involved in this are also using their expertise.

We again thank The News-Disptach and Alicia and hope they will continue to follow this story, which probably won't end for at least two to three more years.

Jan Nona

Pines

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=27913

NIPSCO, Brown must be fair with people in Pines
The recent articles about the contamination in the Town of Pines are welcome and managed to bring to light some of the obstacles the residents of the town and the surrounding area have been facing. For the last eight years, the residents of Pines and the surrounding area have been struggling to have safe, clean water and an uncontaminated environment.

Although many residents are connected to Michigan City water, at least one third of the residents in the town and everyone in the surrounding area who have contaminated wells or wells that have the potential for contamination are not connected to safe water. The area's animals, soil and water, including Lake Michigan and the National Lakeshore, have been polluted by the contaminants that are released by the coal combustion waste produced by NIPSCO [landfilled at Brown Inc.'s Yard 520 in Pines].

The P.I.N.E.S. expert has proven that the groundwater flow model that the Potentially Responsible Parties, Brown Inc. and NIPSCO, produced is flawed beyond repair, making it unusable and resulting in the U.S. EPA throwing it out! However, the EPA refuses to grant P.I.N.E.S. the money to pay for the time and effort the expert expended reviewing and disproving the ground water model.

But wait, isn't that what the Technical Assistance Plan money is supposed to be for? The PRPs paid their expert hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce the flawed model, IDEM and the National Park Service experts were paid with taxpayer dollars. Why can't EPA require that the P.I.N.E.S. expert be paid TAP money by the Potentially Responsible Parties? Oh yeah, I forgot, the money is controlled by the very people who caused this whole MESS to begin with! It's like letting the fox guard the hen house.

Brown Inc. has rarely sent a representative to any of the public meetings held by the EPA during this process, leaving one to wonder if they even care that their greed helped cause this contamination.

On the surface, NIPSCO looks like a good neighbor. To their credit, they donate money to many great organizations. But dig below the surface, where it really counts, and you will see they don't really care. If they did, they would do the right thing. CLEAN UP the mess they made of our area and at the very least make sure everyone has safe, clean water.

Our property and lives have been contaminated by these people. All we ask is for them to be fair and honest.

Cathi Murray

Pines

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=28078

NIPSCO, Brown hardly commendable
Thank you for all the print that the Pines water issues have been getting recently. The two-part article was very well written, but I have to ask "where have you been?" Your paper has been noticeably silent on this issue that has been going on now for several years. Nothing has been in your paper until a local radio host "re-broke" this story. While the articles were certainly well written, you followed them up with an editorial praising the two polluters saying they should be commended. Commended for what?

Through their own greed and lack of concern for the environment they contaminated a whole town's ground water. They fight the town and the P.I.N.E.S. group at every turn trying to spend them into submission. This is hardly a commendable act.

People still have contaminated wells and these two polluters are shirking their responsibility. As the plume of pollution spreads, more are sure to be affected, and still they refuse to run safe water to these people. Again, this is hardly commendable.

They wish to draw a line in the sand saying this is where their liability ends, even though the problem is far from fixed. They are also trying to quickly slam the door on any future liability. This is hardly commendable.

The EPA needs to re-declare this area a "Super Fund" site instead of an "Alternative Super Fund Site." This will take the responsibility for testing and planning a fix away from the polluters and put it back into the hands of the federal government. It is time to stop letting the fox guard the hen house.

Your paper recently told how our state rated with polluters, and NIPSCO led the list. All the while their corporate profits boom as all Indiana residents pay for it in health care costs and lost loved ones. If NIPSCO and Brown want to be commended all they have to do is the right thing. So far they haven't!

George Adey

The Pines

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2010/0...0a177082260.txt

Yard 520 ash dump is a nightmare

Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 4:17 AM CST
I applaud Kevin Walsh [“Where was Save the Dunes when ash was dumped?” Jan. 16]. Yes, we do have a crisis in Michigan City. The coal ash dump, or Yard 520, is just creeping along. Creeping into more areas, seeping, weeping, moving into our fragile environment.

I would guess that the dump is maybe one and one-half miles from Lake Michigan. However it is about five feet from Brown Ditch, which flows into Lake Michigan. Is there not a clay bowl under the toxic waste? IDEM is just not sure. Take a close look at the dump. It does seep out into our local environment. Why, yes, it does, at least from the top. Why do we stay in Michigan City? Most would say, ah, the dunes, the lake, the park, Mount Baldy, sunsets. Yes, that is my answer.

I filter my water four times before using it. I worry about taking a shower. Our skin is our largest organ and it is a transdermal organ, meaning that it absorbs things that it is exposed to. Our children will have the bulk of the future health concerns, having grown up with a toxic well.

Let us say a prayer for the people who have to deal with this nightmare.

Kristine Kysel

Michigan City

[edgeywood]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2010/0...b8914904278.txt

Save Dunes challenged Pines landfill in 1980s
Published: Thursday, January 28, 2010 4:17 AM CST
Save the Dunes has been involved with the Pines landfill issue since the 1980s when our former director, Charlotte Read, challenged decisions by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management concerning issues at Pines Landfill (Yard 520).

Save the Dunes and People Against Hazardous Landfills coordinated the first groundwater sampling efforts near the landfill to document significant groundwater contamination. We also proposed to IDEM years ago and continue to support a final closure of the landfill that would surround it with a slurry wall to reduce (but not eliminate) water infiltration of the waste.

We worked with the P.I.N.E.S. group to provide background documentation in the past. In fact, we had documentation that IDEM and EPA did not have. Save the Dunes has a long record addressing contamination issues throughout Northwest Indiana. Thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight.

Tom Anderson

Executive Director

Save the Dunes

q

Editor’s note: Tom Anderson’s letter is in response to the Jan. 16 letter “Where was Save the Dunes when ash was dumped?”

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2010/0...8d705541805.txt

Landfill toxins enter drinking water

Published: Friday, January 29, 2010 4:55 PM CST
I would like to tell you why the Pines water pollution is a crisis, as it was edited out of my first letter. Please take a look at a map of our lake shore. Note that Brown Ditch flows into Lake Michigan. The Yard 520 toxic dump is right along the Brown Ditch. This dump site is full of toxins, arsenic, molybdenum, boron, lead — also high levels of radioactivity. This stream flows north, first connecting with Kintzele Ditch and then into Lake Michigan.

This is the important part for those that live in Michigan City. The Brown/Kintzele Ditch outlet is just 2.2 miles from the Michigan City pier and the water intake where Michigan City draws its water from is just off the pier out in the lake.

Does the Michigan City Water Department have the technology to clean water of all these toxic substances? I hope so. Does New Buffalo? St. Joe? Gary? Chicago? Milwaukee? Our entire Great Lakes basin?

This is a crisis. Let us hold the responsible parties responsible. Clean up is years away, and at the rate of the progress we’ve seen, it may be much longer. Maybe if enough people let NIPSCO know they are not happy with how slow this clean up process is taking, maybe they will act faster.

If this problem received more press, that bad press might serve to inspire the company to clean it up. Maybe in time to save the lakes. It is OUR crisis. We need all voices, all faces, to stand up and show unity in caring about our Great Lakes. The lake we all so love. The lake our drinking water comes from. Not just The Pines. Let us not be ostriches any longer. If you care about the environment, understand this is not just a problem of The Pines. This should not be ignored.

Kristine Kysel

Pine Township

q

Editor’s note: The final paragraph of Kristine Kysel’s letter Tuesday “Yard 520 ash dump is a nightmare” was inadvertently omitted.

[Southsider2k12]

http://www.thenewsdispatch.com/articles/20...8c391922964.txt

Save the Dunes valuable in landfill fight

Published: Sunday, January 31, 2010 11:15 PM CST
Regarding the letter, “Where was Save the Dunes when ash was dumped?” [Jan. 16], everything Tom Anderson said in Thursday’s News-Dispatch was the way it happened back in the 1980s [“Save the Dunes challenged Pines landfill in 1980s”]. Both Save the Dunes and the La Porte County Board of Health tried to convince the now Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Army Corps of Engineers that this was not a good place to be dumping all this coal combustion waste.

Since that time, it has been found to be a material that will and did contaminate ground water (and ultimately private wells) and soil. Save the Dunes was very instrumental in supplying the P.I.N.E.S. group with much support and documentation proving this. The area is now a designated alternative Superfund site.

Residents in and around the Yard 520 Landfill didn’t even begin to realize the possible repercussions of the dumping of coal combustion waste in such an area until sometime in 2000.

Again Save the Dunes was very involved in assisting the P.I.N.E.S. group in becoming the organization they are today. The P.I.N.E.S. group had no experience in organizing a grass roots organization and Save the Dunes was right there.

Today the group is much more organized and aware of what can be done. However, we continue to know that if need be, we can always call on the Save the Dunes organization for advice.

In addition to Save the Dunes, we had help and advice from the Hoosier Environmental Council, Clean Air Task Force, Earth Justice, and the Integrity Project and probably most important, Geo-Hydro. Geo-Hydro is the technical adviser for the P.I.N.E.S. group. A big THANKS to all of you.

For additional information about the Superfund process, P.I.N.E.S. group, and the fight that we have been conducting for these many years, go to www.pineswater.org.

Finally, if there are any students out there with an environmental project you feel is worthy, go to the Unity Foundation Web site (www.uflc.net) to see if you might qualify for the Environmental Stewardship Award.

Jan Nona

Pines

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2010/0...a3602352560.txt

Others helped landfill fight, too

Published: Thursday, February 4, 2010 3:50 PM CST
When I wrote in last week, thanking some people, I forgot a few [“Save the Dunes valuable in landfill fight,” Sunday]. I’d like to rectify that. A very sincere thanks to Sen. Richard Lugar and his staff. They have helped us considerably over the past many years. They have been attentive and responsive to the issues.

We also appreciate two of our local churches, Dunes Baptist Church and the Fellowship of God Church. Both allowed us to use their facilities on many occasions very generously.

Finally, and probably most important, the citizens in and around the Pines area, including the P.I.N.E.S. Group (People in Need of Environmental Safety). A lot have contributed their time, talents and energy. Some have even donated postage, copy paper, etc. Our residents have proven to be extremely generous “salt of the earth” people.

Thank you!

Jan Nona

Pines