-Caveat Lector- http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-30-02.html Chemical Firms Reject Hazwaste Underground Injection By Donald Sutherland WASHINGTON, DC, July 30, 1999 (ENS) - One of the world's largest chemical manufacturers is drastically cutting back the use of hazardous deep injection wells for disposal of liquid toxins. DuPont, the largest corporate user of hazardous waste underground injection wells in the United States, expects by the year 2000 to cut its use of injection wells to dispose of toxic waste by more than 95 percent. The company currently operates 30 Class I injection wells. Chad Holliday, president and CEO of Dupont (Photo courtesy Dupont) By the year 2000, DuPont expects toxic waste going into injection wells to decrease from a high in 1989 of 256 million pounds to less than ten million pounds. About 15 percent of the reduction will be due to the delisting of non-aerosol forms of hydrogen chloride as hazardous. The rest will be due to source reduction, recycling and technology improvements. Using all methods of disposal, Dupont annually disposes of 1.5 billion gallons of hazardous waste per year according to the Ground Water Protection Council, a not-for-profit group representing regulators of underground injection control wells. In rejecting underground injection wells Dupont joins another of the world's largest chemical firms, Dow Chemical. The actions taken by DuPont and Dow Chemical raise questions about the safety of a program the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) promotes to handle over 60 percent of the nation's hazardous liquid waste. In 1980, Dow Chemical closed its last hazardous Class 1 UIC well. "Back in the 1970s management did not believe Class 1 UIC wells for hazardous waste were right, and they developed a corporate policy against them," says Mike Rio, global director for environment, health and safety for operations at Dow Chemical. "Our last hazardous Class 1 UIC well was closed in the early '80s, and we are now reliant on incineration and recycling and our waste reduction program," Rio told ENS. Manager of environmental stewardship for DuPont, Ed Mongin said, "Our largest toxic releases are in deep underground injection control (UIC) wells. While management feels our current program is safe, we felt diminishing support from communities and society with these Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) releases." "Under our corporate pollution prevention program, we are working on major alternative projects to deep UIC wells which are cost effective," says Mongin. Class I underground injection well in Florida (Photo courtesy Florida Internet Center for Understanding Sustainability) Diluted liquid industrial wastes are injected through wells thousands of feet into geologic formations that serve as environmental protection barriers for as long as the waste, containing mostly salt water, remains hazardous. Those permitted to use deepwell disposal for hazardous material must file petitions by certain deadlines demonstrating that the waste will not migrate to the environment in a hazardous form for at least 10,000 years. EPA officials contend the Class 1 UIC program is safe. Some are skeptical of DuPont's promise to drastically reduce reliance on deep injection wells. "DuPont vacillates left to right on this issue, and now that the company is approaching their year 2000 deadline they are asking to extend all their Class 1 UIC permits," says Bruce Kobelski, UIC team leader for the EPA. DuPont's latest commitment to drastically reduce deep injection wells for disposal of hazardous waste has isolated those industries still reliant on the nation's approximately 600 Class 1 (UIC) wells. John Henshaw, leader of environment, health, and safety at Solutia, told ENS, "Over the last four to five years we had talked about establishing a policy against them [the UIC wells], but the science of whether there is a risk hasn't shown there is one, and regulatory agencies are allowing expansion of the program." Solutia, formerly the chemical businesses of Monsanto, spun off into a separate company in 1997. "We are aware of Dow and DuPont's actions on Class 1 UIC wells, but for many manufacturing companies - particularly those on the Gulf Coast who are heavily reliant on them - to turn around would be costly and time consuming," says Henshaw. The EPA, the Ground Water Protection Council, and the Chemical Manufacturers Association all say the Class 1 UIC well program created under the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act is not a threat to underground sources of drinking water supplies. They say there is no scientific evidence to support the concern that the public could be at risk from the injection of hazardous waste underground. But the EPA and the Ground Water Protection Council do admit that Class 1 UIC waste laced with carcinogenic volatile organic compounds is entering underground sources of drinking water in Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Oklahoma in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Many states including Alabama, Georgia, and Wisconsin have banned Class 1 UIC wells. Florida's violating municipal Class 1 UIC wells represent the nation's largest point source violation of underground sources of drinking water according to the EPA, but no enforcement or penalty actions have taken place. "Besides Florida, we have had Class 1 UIC waste entering drinking groundwater supplies in Winona, Texas, Vickery, Ohio, and Tulsa, Oklahoma," says Mike Pique, executive director of Ground Water Protection Council. "Look, the EPA's potential risk chart for hazardous waste disposal methods lists deep injection wells as the least risk of all disposal methods," he says, "and many companies like DuPont have never had a problem according to well and state records." Not according to the Chemical Manufacturers Association. "We have no concern from a regulatory point of view with these wells but there are a number of civil action suits still pending which we are very concerned could possibly set an astronomical monetary effect precedent," says David Mentall, manager of environmental issues and UIC staff executive for the CMA. Michael, 10, who lives in Winona, Texas, suffers from neurofibromatosis. With Michael's type of Elephant Man's Disease, both parents must have the genetic markers. His parents do not. Michael has hundreds of tumors throughout his body. (Photo ©Tammy Cromer-Campbell courtesy of Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins) In Winona, Texas, residents are very concerned with a violating hazardous Class 1 UIC well now closed that was operated by American Ecology Environmental Services Corporation from 1994 to its closure in 1996, and before that by Gibraltar Chemical Resources. "How can anyone say the toxins released from these Class 1 UIC wells are not a health threat," says Phyllis Glazer, owner of a 2,200 acre Winona ranch and president of the not-for-profit Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins. "The state attorney general has fined the hazardous well operators in our town, but children and adults are dead and dying from the toxins released from that injection well," she says. The Five Classes of Injection Wells Identified by the EPA and State Regulations: Class I: wells utilized for industrial or municipal waste disposal. These are wells through which waste is injected below the lowermost underground source of drinking water. Class II: a well utilized for enhanced recovery injection, oil/gas storage, or oil and gas waste fluid disposal Class III: solution mining wells such as brine wells Class IV: wells through which hazardous waste is injected into or above an underground source of drinking water (banned) Class V: wells through which non-hazardous fluid is injected into or above an underground source of drinking water © Environment News Service (ENS) 1999. All Rights Reserved. Environmental Press Releases Free ENS Daily News Feed by Email Enter Email Address Here: Email the Environment Editor Get your personalized news here. Copyright © 1999 Lycos, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Lycos® is a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon University. 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