CALCASIEU COMMUNITY HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM 

Minutes form the
PUBLIC MEETING, NOVEMBER 13, 2001

MISSION STATEMENT
A representative body drawn from a cross-section of the community that serves as a forum for ongoing, open communications to continually improve and protect the quality of life, human health and the environment of Calcasieu Parish
 
MEMBERSHIP
Attendees: Marvin Paggen, Dr. Harold Stevenson, Larry DeRoussel, Kevin Savoie, Nona Harris, Jack Bailey, Charlie Atherton, Ernie Colonna Jr., Barbara Cahee, Bryan Beam, Lois Booker Malvo, Junus Reado, Sr., Dr. Susan Jones, Rev. Alvin Noel, Dr. Tim Hall (Coordinator/Facilitator)
 
Absent: Marie Reed, Dick Gremillion, Mayor Dudley Dixon, Dennis Bergeron
 
Open: Non-industrial/small business
 
Presenters: Dr. Tim Hall, Michael Vince (DEQ), Steve Gilrein (EPA), Dutch Donlon (DEQ), Jim Rock (PPG Industries)
 
INTRODUCTION
The first public meeting of the Calcasieu Community Health & Environmental Forum was held on Tuesday, 13 November 2001 in Stokes Auditorium in Hardtner Hall on the McNeese State University campus. The meeting lasted from 6-8:00 pm.
 
The Forum is hosted by the Violet H. Howell Institute for Industry-Community Relations within the McNeese State University Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Harold Stevenson, Director of the Howell Institute, welcomed the public and opened the meeting with introductions.
 
The agenda for this meeting was an introduction to the Forum and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in Calcasieu Parish.
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE FORUM – Dr. Tim Hall
The Calcasieu Community Health & Environmental Forum was created to replace the EPA/CLEAN Quarterly Meetings which ended in January 2001. Dr. Hall, a former resident and plant manager, is the coordinator/facilitator for the Forum. He was hired by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to organize and establish the Forum.
 
Beginning in April 2001, Dr. Hall met with local concerned citizens, industry representatives, local government, DEQ representatives and EPA-Region 6 representatives to evaluate the feasibility of the public meeting concept. Through one-on-one meetings, group discussions and citizen/group input, the Forum concept was established. Using the current Estuary Task Force as a membership format, the Forum established the following representation:
 
 

This group has met five times to establish a Mission Statement and Guiding Principles for the Forum:
 
MISSION STATEMENT
A representative body drawn from a cross-section of the community that serves as a forum for ongoing, open communications to continually improve and protect the quality of life, human health and the environment of Calcasieu Parish
 
GUIDING PRINCIPLES

• Meetings should be run by a truly impartial facilitator that all parties agree upon in advance
• Meeting times and places will encourage public participation
• Open public microphones will be provided to the public after each agenda item is discussed and before closure
• Decisions will be made and agreed to by consensus
• Forum attendees representing a Forum member will not be considered consensus members
• Federal and state agencies will be resources but not consensus members and will be available to provide necessary and timely technical assistance
• Process of setting agendas and selecting presenters will be done by the complete Forum membership
• Meeting agendas will be provided to the Forum membership at least one week prior to the meeting and an effort will be made to include information that will be distributed at the meeting
• Meeting notice to the public will be published 5 days in advance
• Meetings will be held on the second Tuesday of every odd month with every other meeting being designated as an agenda preparation meeting
• Forum members will not have more than three (3) consecutive unexcused absences and/or three (3) unexcused absences in the period of one year
• Forum openings will be replaced as soon as possible with coordination with the facilitator. Identified groups will identify their selected representative and community candidates will be proposed by the Forum such that the facilitator can confirm participation

Forum will maintain a broad-based membership that is representative of the initial Forum:

• Forum adopts a policy of prudence; that is, decisions will be made to best protect the public health and the environment

 
The Forum will meet on the second Tuesday of every odd month, for a total of six (6) meetings each year. This November meeting is the first public meeting of the Forum. In January 2002, the Forum members will have an agenda preparation meeting and the next public meeting will be held on the second Tuesday of March 2002.
 
The public meetings are structured to invite public participation. After each presentation, there will be time allotted for the public to submit questions on index cards. Each of these questions will be answered either at the meeting or later in the meeting record and on the Forum web site: http://www.mcneese.edu/colleges/science/howell/index.htm. Additionally, there will be an “open mike” period following completion of all presentations for the public to address any issue of concern.
 
In the process of establishing the Forum, the membership created a list of suggested topics for the public meetings. A listing of these suggestions was provided and the public was asked to select their top 3 priorities for future meeting topics. The results of this survey are as follows:

1. Status of the Chicot Aquifer
2. Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) – Surface Water Issues
3. Enhanced Air Monitoring in the Lake Area
4. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in Calcasieu
5. Permitting Issues in Calcasieu Parish
6. Multimedia Inspections/Reports
7. Ozone in Calcasieu Parish
8. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in Calcasieu
9. Environmental Justice in Calcasieu
10. Broad-based Resource Management Education

Additional topics suggested by the public were:

• Bayou d’inde contamination
• Human contamination levels in Calcasieu, especially halogenated hydrocarbons
• Restoration of Ecosystem Health & Biodiversity
• Citizen vulnerabilities to catastrophic releases of hazardous materials through storms and/or terrorism
• Entergy NISCO Plant – particulates/fly ash/noise
• Risk/Benefit Analysis of Industry in Calcasieu Parish
• Death & Health of Mossville people
• How far was the Sheraton Hotel wells (EDC) tested
• Dioxin in Calcasieu Parish

RESOURCE CONSERVATION & RECOVERY ACT (RCRA)

RCRA INTRODUCTION– Michael Vince, DEQ and Steve Gilrein, EPA-Region 6
RCRA was made a federal law in 1976 for the purpose of protecting human health and the natural environment by managing hazardous waste. A hazardous waste is well defined in the regulations and is broadly defined as a substance that is either flammable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic. The RCRA law governs waste from “cradle to grave” and is implemented in Louisiana by the DEQ. The role of EPA in governing hazardous materials is to assist the states in implementing and enforcing regulations, provide some funding, and expertise. Each state is responsible for implementing RCRA programs that cover the lifetime of a substance from its creation, storage, transportation, use and disposal. EPA’s focus is immediate problems, expedited cleanups, permits, and public participation.
 
There are approximately 72 facilities in Louisiana that make, treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste. Each of these facilities must be RCRA permitted. Calcasieu Parish has 9 RCRA facilities: Georgia Gulf, Lyondell, Cecos, Citgo, Conoco, Chemical Waste Management, PPG, Olin, and Sasol. All of these facilities either have RCRA permits or are in interim or administrative status. Interim or administrative status means that although an industry’s permit has expired, they have re-applied, and are waiting for the renewed permit while being allowed to continue operations under the same guidelines as the expired permit.
 
RCRA permits are issued for a period of 10 years. There is no time limit for how long the actual permitting process can take.
 
RCRA CORRECTIVE ACTION – Lewis “Dutch” Donlon, DEQ
Four (4) of the 9 RCRA facilities in Calcasieu are involved in the corrective action part of the RCRA program: Cecos International, Citgo Petroleum, PPG Industries, and SASOL North America. These facilities are either investigating or cleaning up hazardous waste contamination that has affected the environment. RCRA governs the cleanup of hazardous waste sites such as old landfills, surge ponds, or spills. The corrective action part of RCRA requires a process of evaluating the entire site, identifying problem locations, investigating the source and extent of the problem, and implementing corrective measures. The four sites involved in the corrective action process are provided below:

• Cecos International
• Closed commercial hazardous waste disposal facility
• Industrial liquid wastes from petroleum and petrochemical operations and other inorganic and organic by-product materials
• Remedial Feasibility Investigation (RFI) completed/Interim corrective actions on-going
• Primary sources were old unlined impoundments
• Contaminants include volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, metals and other inorganic compounds
• Corrective Action is hydrodynamic control with a recovery well system consisting of 20 wells

Citgo Petroleum
Petroleum refinery wastes
RCRA units requiring groundwater monitoring and/or corrective action include impoundments, landfills, land treatment units, and wastewater treatment impoundments
Remedial Feasibility Investigation (RFI) Work Plan under review
Sources include process areas and waste treatment units
Contaminants include volatile, semi-volatile organic compounds and metals
Corrective Action is hydrodynamic control with 3 wells and biogeochemical treatment
 
PPG Industries

• DEQ issued Compliance Order in 1991 for surge pond
• Hazardous & Solid Waste Amendment conditions in 1990 require site-wide investigation
• Sources include process areas, product storage areas, and old unlined impoundments
• Contaminants include volatile organic compounds (primarily chlorinated hydrocarbons), and metals
• Corrective Actions are hydrodynamic control (groundwater plumes in several zones), approximately 108 recovery wells, contaminated groundwater being recovered from several zones, and Chicot containment system
• Corrective Measures Study (CMS) expected in mid-2002

Sasol North America

• DEQ issued Administrative Order in 1986 requiring plant-wide investigation and remediation of contaminated groundwater
• Hazardous & Solid Waste Amendment (HSWA) conditions imposed in 1993
• Remedial Feasibility Investigation (RFI) approved/implemented in 1998
• Sources include process areas, tank farm and old unlined impoundments
• Contaminants include volatile organic compounds (primarily 1,2-dichloroethane (EDC))
• Corrective Actions are hydrodynamic control of groundwater plume, and recovery well system consisting of 28 (7 horizontal & 21 vertical) recovery wells with wells in the 10 foot, 25 foot, 50 foot, and 80 foot zones

 
RCRA at PPG Industries – Jim Rock, PPG
PPG has a facility in Calcasieu which is actively addressing RCRA corrective actions.
Mr. Jim Rock provided the three (3) major goals of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act:

• To protect human health and environment
• To reduce waste and conserve energy and natural resources, and
• To reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous waste

The requirements of the RCRA regulations are quite comprehensive and a list of the various requirements under the regulations was provided. Those requirements of the RCRA regulations that currently apply to the PPG Lake Charles Complex were noted:
 
Incinerators, boilers & industrial furnaces, hazardous waste tanks, Waste Minimization requirements, Remediation Wastes, universal wastes (e.g. batteries, fluorescent bulbs, lamps, thermostats, etc.), groundwater, containers, recordkeeping and reporting, manifest records, annual hazardous waste reporting, contingency plans (i.e., for emergencies involving hazardous waste facilities), personnel training, spills, waste analysis plan, financial responsibility, air emissions standards (for equipment leaks, process vents, tanks, surface impoundments and containers), land disposal restrictions covering every hazardous waste, hazardous debris, corrective action management units (CAMU’s), closure of hazardous waste facilities, used oil, interim status facilities, and citizens’ right to participate in the process.
 
Included in these requirements is the training of employees whose job involves handling or treating hazardous waste. PPG trains about 1,200 employees each year.
 
Mr. Rock provided examples of portions of the employee training requirements including the correct container, labeling, personal protective equipment, and waste characterization. Examples showing the handling of hazardous waste in drums, roll-off boxes (bulk solids), and tanks (bulk liquids) was provided.
 
The RCRA corrective action process can be viewed in three (3) steps:

1. Comprehensive Phase Investigation and Interim Corrective Measures
2. Corrective Measure Study
3. Corrective Measure Implementation Phase

PPG began step one of this process in 1990 and is currently in step 2 conducting the Corrective Measure Study. Once complete, the implementation phase will begin.
 
The overall timeline/status of the PPG Lake Charles Complex under RCRA regulations was also provided:

• 1980 – EPA promulgates RCRA regulations and PPG applied for interim status
• 1982 – Interim status was granted to PPG
• 1984 – Significant change (Hazardous & Solid Waste Amendment) made to regulations by EPA and are still in place today
• 1985 – PPG applies for final RCRA permit to governing agencies
• 1986 – Successful trial burn on incinerators, complied with new tank regulations
• 1990 – Proposed final permit issued to PPG by LDEQ
• 1990 – PPG appealed some conditions in the permit and have worked cooperatively with the agencies to resolve. Issues are still not resolved due to turnover in personnel, closure and resulting permit modifications in some facilities, low priority with agency due to acceptable operation.
• 2001 – PPG performs more trial burns to demonstrate compliance with regulations.

Present – PPG continues to operate within permit conditions in appealed permit, air permits, awaiting issuance of final RCRA permit
 
CLOSING
Approximately 140 questions were submitted on index cards. Answers to these questions will be made available at the March 2002 meeting and may be found on the Forum web site. In closing, Charlie Atherton spoke for the Forum members in expressing thanks to our presenters with special appreciation to Mr. Jim Rock of PPG Industries.
 
NEXT MEETING
January 8, 2002
6:00 pm
Where: McNeese State University Business Conference Center
Agenda: Agenda Preparation for March 12, 2002 Public Meeting