OEPA to propose option for contaminated Fayette sites

By DAVID J. COEHRS

Expositor Features Editor

FAYETTE - A public meeting is scheduled July 14 to determine how best to lay to rest a 15-year Fayette contaminated groundwater controversy.

Village administrators and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency representatives will hear opinions from community members about an option to resolve contamination at the former sites of Gorham Fayette Local Schools and Fayette Tubular Products. The forum will be held 6:30 p.m. at the Fayette Opera House.

The public can continue to respond in writing until July 21.

The OEPA will suggest the groundwater's contaminant, trichloroethylene, which eventually breaks down into vinyl chloride, be allowed to naturally attenuate - or biodegrade - at the industrial site.

That option would include land use restriction, maintenance of the site and annual inspections of the building's floor to prevent chemical leakage. The estimated 25-year program would cost DH Holdings Corp., which is responsible for clearing contamination at the site, $104,000.

Trichloroethylene is used as an industrial solvent, often to degrease machinery. It contains cancerous agents, and is one of the most common groundwater contaminants, according to OPEA spokesperson Dina Pierce.

It was used by Fayette Tubular Products in the process of making metal tubing.

The chemical has posed no risk to residents since village wells were relocated and a new school was built at a different location, Pierce said. The contaminants degrade naturally and vaporize easily, with vapors dispersing harmlessly into open air.

The chemical was considered dangerous at the former school building because it evaporates easily, she added. The vapors can cause potentially harmful air contamination in closed -in structures.

At one point, vapors were detected in the former school building. DH Holdings and another contractor, Hutchinson FTS, Inc. settled with the school district for $3.9 million.

But Pierce said it was never fully determined whether the fumes came from contaminated groundwater. And she said the former school and industrial sites are no longer the public health risk they once were.

"Since there's no longer that population there, eventually nature will break this stuff down into harmless components," she said. "Any vapors coming out of the soil will evaporate quickly. There is no danger to the public now."

DH Holdings is required to monitor wells at those adjoining sites. For years, the company also monitored air quality at the former school and dug an underground trench to cut the building off from the water flow.

The attenuation process might include fencing off and/or monitoring the industrial property. The OEPA is placing focus there because DH Holding's 2007 settlement agreement placed a deed restriction on the school site.

Pierce said if the village and OEPA are presented with sound reasons why natural attenuation is not the best decision other options will be considered.

Fayette Mayor Craig Rower declined to comment until he receives more information.

"Ultimately, it's going to be between the property owners and the EPA, and the village is going to have very little say about it," he said.