Posted on May 24, 2018
By Tim Fenster, Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will soon begin testing soil and water from Eighteen Mile Creek near Plank Road as part of the agency’s ongoing cleanup of the creek.
For the past 16 months, EPA has been designing its work plan of the second phase of the Eighteen Mile Creek Corridor cleanup, which will address a roughly one-mile section of the creek south of Harwood Street to the Erie Canal. But the testing near Plank Road is part of EPA’s investigation for the third and final phase of the cleanup, which will address a roughly 14-mile stretch from Harwood Street to the creek’s end at Olcott Harbor.
The agency will be testing surface soil and water for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals (including lead) and semi-volatile organic compounds.
PCBs are believed to cause cancer and can damage the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems in humans and animals; lead can damage the nervous system and cause other health complications.
Asked about specific locations, an EPA spokesperson said surface water will be taken near Plank Road, three flow monitors will be installed at “unspecified locations” near the road and that soil as deep as 1 foot will be collected from a creek floodplain east of Plank Road.
The creek lies to the east of Plank Road in an area near the city wastewater treatment plant, then the road crosses the creek farther north near the intersection with Mill Street.
The Common Council authorized the testing by a unanimous vote May 16.
The second phase of creek corridor remediation is expected to include dredging contaminated sediments at the former United Paperboard Company property, 62 to 70 Mill St.; the White Transportation property, 30 to 40 Mill St.; Upson Park; former residential parcels on Water Street; and near the dilapidated Clinton and William Street dams, which will be removed. The former Flintkote property, 198 and 300 Mill St., will undergo dredging and capping.
Late last month, EPA said it has no anticipated completion date for the design of the phase two work plan. The cleanup is expected to cost $23 million, which will initially be funded with federal dollars.
The Superfund program operates on the principle that polluters should fund the cleanups, not taxpayers. However, EPA spokesman Michael Basile said the creek’s history of industrial use dates back to the 1800s and dozens of industrial facilities have called the banks of the creek home. Basile said this complicates efforts to determine which companies are responsible for the pollution. Most Superfund sites, he said, are in more concentrated areas with just one or two industries.
The agency is still reviewing the information on the companies that are potentially responsible.
“We can’t point fingers until we have all the information,” Basile said previously.
In May 2016, EPA finished the first phase of the cleanup, which included the removal of a building on the Flintkote site and the buyout and relocation of five families on nearby Water Street. Basile explained that those residents had to be relocated because each time the creek flooded, new contamination washed onto their yards.
Source: Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
