Riverkeeper Questions EPA Commitment to Clean Raleigh PCB Mess

Almost 30 years after it was first discovered, the PCB contamination from Raleigh's Ward Transformer Superfund site continues to threaten the environment and public health - but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appears to have little sense of urgency about cleaning up the disaster.

"It has become clear the EPA has no intentions of forcing Ward and other responsible parties to clean up the downstream water bodies, even though the City of Raleigh, Wake County (who owns the park around Lake Crabtree) and the town of Cary all want those water bodies cleaned up," according to a recent e-mail from Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks, a member of the citizen task force appointed by Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and Wake County Commission Chair Joe Bryan to come up with recommendations for addressing the problem.

Raleigh Eco News first reported on the contamination from Ward, an electrical transformer refurbishing company, last year after state health officials issued a fish consumption advisory for Little Brier Creek south of Brier Creek Parkway, the Brier Creek Reservoir and Lake Crabtree, a popular recreational fishing spot. The state recently issued another advisory for fish from Crabtree Creek, which runs through Umstead State Park.

A July 3 Raleigh News & Observer article about the spreading pollution focused local officials' attention on the disaster, leading to the task force's creation. The group has held three meetings to do date and has had the chance to ask EPA many questions - but the agency has provided very few answers, Naujoks reports.

"The EPA is moving very slowly in taking any action against Ward," he says. For example, under Superfund law the agency could have ordered an emergency removal action of transformers and drums of PCB-contaminated sludge almost two years ago, but it did not.

As a result, Naujoks and his task force colleagues have begun exploring alternative actions. They have contacted Riverkeepers on the Hudson in New York and the Housatonic in Massachusetts, which were both contaminated by PCBs from General Electric.

"Their experience has been very helpful for our recommendations," Naujoks says. "We hope to avoid the same pitfalls and decades of PCB-contaminated fish and water bodies that have become commonplace in other parts of the country."

The task force plans to release its recommendations next month.