By Devawn Oberlender

When it comes to hazardous waste sites, what you don’t know could come back to haunt you later.

It’s a difficult life lesson, often true when dealing with toxins that can take years to show their full effect in the body. Especially in the case of children, whose bodies absorb far more toxins “pound per pound” than adults given the same exposure. Scientists call it the “body burden,” and recognize that there is a disproportionately high level of toxic uptake in the bodies of developing children.

Here in the New River Valley we have our own sprawling hazardous waste site, tucked into our community just a mile upwind from Belview Elementary.

We know this site as the Radford Arsenal.

It would not be a surprise to hear that the majority of “stakeholders” who live within a ten-mile radius of the Arsenal are not aware of their proximity to toxic waste from this site.

Likewise, most people who are impacted by the toxins don’t know there is an important meeting set for St.Patrick’s Day from 7:00 – 8:00 pm, to address the EPA’s RCRA permit renewal.

(RCRA stands for Resource Conservation and Recovery Act).

The renewal was added to a previously scheduled RAB (Restoration Advisory Board) session to serve as a “pre” meeting in the process. In addition to providing information, the EPA would like to gather contact info for community members who want to learn more about the site.

The RCRA permit issued in 2000 identified 77 different areas at the Radford Arsenal as hazardous. To date, six of these sites are considered closed. Many of the remaining sites are classified as “high priority” for clean up in the 2010 version of the Installation Action Plan, more than twenty years after first being designated “high priority.”

http://www.radfordaapirp.org/invest/iap-current%20year.htm

This RCRA site happens to be one of our largest local employers and an important supplier of explosive munitions to our soldiers. Needless to say, no one wants to see the Arsenal shut down.

What is a reasonable and even patriotic, is to expect the residents living around the site to be informed about the hazardous waste clean up process. Unfortunately, the majority of parents who send their kids to Belview Elementary have no idea that the school sits a mile downwind from a significant source of toxic emissions.

Some of these parents work at the Arsenal, or know someone who does. Yet very few people breathing the air around the Arsenal are aware of the serious violation and DEQ fine assessed on the Arsenal last March. The “notice of violation” was issued for releases of lead and cadmium from their hazardous waste incinerators more than three times the allowable limit. The period of time during which they were “in exceedence” is not clear, but may have been months rather than weeks.

Even relatively low levels of chronic lead exposure are known to have serious developmental impacts on pregnant women and children.

(See Roanoke Times article: http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/247292)

Unlike the acrid smells coming from the Arsenal that hang in the air even miles up the road, lead is perniciously imperceptible.

This significant release of lead to the air from those hazardous waste incinerators went unaddressed by the Montgomery County School Board. And it is a prime example of how the need for transparency and public participation is not being met under the RCRA permit.

If the Arsenal were given NPL, or Superfund status, strong regulations governing public transparency and participation would apply to our community.

The EPA would assign a Community Involvement Coordinator, to be a liaison with the effected community. Under Superfund, EPA can make resources available in the technical assistance program (TAP), which provides professional advice for community members to interpret and understand the impact of proposed clean up strategies.  It is reasonable to expect that this facility would need to address new clean up measures if EPA goes forward with their proposed regulatory standard for perchlorate contamination.

A Superfund classification means this site would already be included on the National Priorities List for remediation.

Documents on the Arsenal’s RAB website note that they have gained the approval of stakeholders in recent RCRA site decisions. Do you know anyone serving as a “stakeholder?”

If you have made this area your home, you are one of those community members with a stake in the clean up process. It’s time to add your voice to the plans that will impact our water, land and air for generations. Now is the time to gain an understanding of how the hazardous wastes at the Arsenal impact our lives.

If the permit is renewed as is, it will mean another ten years of the same RCRA process that has left you in the dark.

Showing up at the Montgomery County Competitiveness Center on Viscoe Road this St. Patti’s day is an all-important “first step” to providing stewardship over this precious slice of green we call home.