Environmental group has long history of being at odds with Southdown
The Green Environmental Coalition (GEC) was founded in 1989, when citizens learned cement company Southdown was burning toxic waste to supplement the coal that fueled its kiln. Citizens staged opposition for five years, and in March 1994, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency denied Southdown a permit for the hazardous waste burning program. According to the GEC, no company had ever been deemed so incompetent or untrustworthy that the state withheld from it a permit to store and treat hazardous waste.
“They were one of the first to be denied - largely due to public involvement,” said Raymond Roe, executive director of the Ohio Hazardous Waste Facility Board. “There was also a lot of factual information regarding what they intended to do. They (state officials) were not exactly pleased with some of the results on the burns that (Southdown) was doing.”
In another battle with the company, the GEC sued Southdown in federal court in 1992, charging that a 500-acre landfill, Landfill 1, owned by Southdown had been leaching heavy metals such as arsenic and selenium into a tributary of the Mad River for at least five years.
"The coalition discovered the landfill in the early ’90s during their investigation into the source of the heavy metal contamination that closed one of the wells in Fairborn's well field,” GEC member Bruce Cornett said. “Chromium, a heavy metal that is known to cause cancer, was found in homes and businesses throughout the city." GEC discovered the contamination in 1992, and later found scientific analyses submitted by Wright State University’s Center for Ground Water Management (CGWM) that confirmed Southdown knew about the contamination.
Submitted to Southdown on Feb. 6, 1990, the CGWM report estimated 1,330 to 1,970 tons of chromic oxide was buried in Landfill 1. It also found the landfill was producing leachate contaminated with arsenic, chromium and selenium and listed the city of Fairborn’s North Well Field as a potential receptor.
In March 1998, GEC added new charges of fraud to its initial complaint, alleging that Southdown sold the contaminated land to Dirtvest Ltd. and 444 Sandhill Corp. (444 and Sandhill refer to roads near the site). The GEC charges these are dummy corporations set up by Southdown so it could avoid reclaiming the land.
“If they get away with this, it would be a precedent-setting situation,” GEC member Dawn Falleur said. GEC’s case against Southdown is scheduled to go trial in August.
In the meantime, the OEPA may be taking a closer look at Landfill 1. “The GEC is trying to get OEPA to intervene (at Landfill 1),” Thompson said. “It’s being considered in the central office.”
REACH IW FREELANCE WRITER ROB BOLEY AT CONTACTUS@IMPACTWEEKLY.COM.