By Mickey Friedman
September 9, 2016
The story of 100 Bridge Street in Great Barrington is a story of failure. And while it’s convenient to cast blame, the real responsibility lies with those at New England Log Homes who made money using lethal chemicals and never put anything aside to adequately pay for a cleanup.
It’s a story that’s been played out in many American towns. And because I spent so much of my time and energy telling the story of General Electric and the poisoning of Pittsfield, I neglected until now to learn about about the toxic contamination of the town I lived in. So add my failure to the list.
Because Great Barrington’s Community Development Corporation (CDC) hasn’t found many places to put affordable housing, it assumed ownership of the abandoned Log Homes site and tried for years to find a mix of commercial tenants and housing that could transform the property.
Because Great Barrington failed to meet the Commonwealth’s 10% threshold for affordable housing, the Zoning Board of Appeals had little choice but approve the CDC’s most recent plan for state financed housing at 100 Bridge Street.
Unfortunately, we, neighbors, Selectboards, Town Managers and Boards of Health pretty much shut our eyes to the contaminated waste site that sat uncleaned across from our school, playground, baseball field, and just blocks from downtown. Exposing us to dioxin contaminated dust for decades. That is until the recent CDC project.
New England Log Homes used Pentachlorophenol (PCP) to treat their logs. PCP contained polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (pCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (pCDFs), as well as hexachlorobenzene.
Dioxins are some of the most toxic substances known to man. In Pittsfield and the Housatonic we’ve been dealing with PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls. Toxic PCBs are measured in parts per million in soil and parts per billion in the blood, ppms and ppbs. Dioxins are toxic in the parts per trillion, ppts.
One part per million is equivalent to a single drop of water in your car’s gas tank. One part per billion is equivalent to a single drop of water in 250 chemical drums. One part per trillion is equivalent to a single drop of water in 20 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Dioxins are dangerous in parts per trillion. Dioxins cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and interfere with hormones. While there are absolutely no safe levels of exposure, governments have struggled to set lower limits for exposure in air and food and soil. These limits vary greatly. Our Canadian neighbors have the most protective standards. They believe dioxins are so dangerous it is unwise to allow exposure beyond the already existing background levels (the levels that exist in soil in areas where they are no known active sources of dioxins). In Canada, this background level is 4 parts per trillion, 4 ppt. So they’ve set 4 ppt as the standard for soil by homes, agricultural, commercial, even industrial properties. In Austria and Finland, the action level for dioxins in residential soil is 100 ppt; and in Italy, it’s 10 ppt.
During a March 2011 meeting, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) stated “dioxins are everywhere on the site.”
Six different soil samples taken on September 15, 2014 at 100 Bridge Street found dioxin levels of 1,100, 1,400, 3,900, 470, 3,600, and 23,000 ppt at depths of 0-18 inches. On August 14, 2015, DEP noted “the average concentration is 1,172 parts per trillion (ppt), while the state standard is 20 ppt.”
Now you can be mad at Tim Geller and the CDC because you think there are better places for affordable housing than beside the Wastewater Treatment Plant or because you think the planned building was poorly designed but they at least have tried to do something about 100 Bridge Street. And I applaud their attempt to use innovative bioremediation to destroy in place the toxic contaminants.
But whether there was something off with BioTech Restoration’s proprietary formula or they made a mistake mixing and tilling the worst contaminated hotspots with cleaner soil or whether local neighbors disturbed by the smells and dust didn’t really appreciate the long-range stakes, DEP pulled the plug on an experimental treatment regime they never really believed in.
And so now we’re stuck with DEP’s usual preferred approach: capping. Covering up the contamination that remains with a geotextile cap and clean fill. And because the CDC is trying to make the financing work, they want/need to cap only the portion of the site that will contain the more easily paid for housing while leaving the undeveloped five plus acres uncleaned and uncapped.
I happen to agree with ZBA members Michael Wise and Carolyn Ivory who bravely expressed the thought this wouldn’t adequately protect public health and safety.
So the question is: how together do we fight to remove and permanently treat our contaminated parts per trillion? I’m in favor of a complete cleanup.
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DEP Repository for 100 Bridge Street documents:
http://public.dep.state.ma.us/fileviewer/Rtn.aspx?rtn=1-0000682
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts-per_notation
http://public.dep.state.ma.us/fileviewer/Default.aspx?formdataid=0&documentid=115229
Fuss & O’Neil
MEETING NOTES
March 9, 2011
PROJECT NUMBER: 1999687.B13
PROJECT NAME: New England Log Homes Demolition
Page 3
Issue of bioremediation was mentioned. MassDEP felt bioremediation of dioxins is generally not practicable. MassDEP: “Dioxins are everywhere on site.” Will be headed toward a Temporary Solution. Possibly do it after the cap via injections.
http://public.dep.state.ma.us/fileviewer/Default.aspx?formdataid=0&documentid=356255
PHASE IV STATUS REPORT NO. 6 FORMER NEW ENGLAND LOG HOMES SITE 100 BRIDGE STREET
GREAT BARRINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS MA DEP RELEASE TRACKING NO. 1-0682
Page 8
26. September 11, 2015: BTR collected 97 soil samples across the Site for field analysis of
dioxins. Reported dioxin concentrations ranged from 1,324 to 1,898 picograms per gram
(pg/g).
http://ceqg-rcqe.ccme.ca/download/en/275
This fact sheet provides Canadian soil quality guidelines for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), commonly known as dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs), for the protection of environmental and human health. These guidelines are based on a modified approach from the CCME Protocol (CCME 1996) in which ambient background concentrations are used in the guideline derivation (Sanexen 2000).
https://semspub.epa.gov/work/HQ/174449.pdf
REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL SOIL LEVELS FOR DIOXIN
Prepared by:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation
Washington, D.C. with technical assistance from: SRC, Inc.
“Parts Per Trillions” was first published in the September 1, 2016 edition of The Berkshire Record.
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