EPA adjusts some arsenic data for coal ash in Town of Pines after environmental

The U.S. Environmental Agency made some changes to faulty arsenic data that Earthjustice, a public interest environmental law organization, found for the coal ash site in the Town of Pines – which has been contaminated for over two decades.

Earthjustice Senior Counsel Lisa Evans, who has reviewed data from hundreds of coal ash contaminated sites, said the Town of Pines has reported some of the highest numbers of arsenic she’s ever seen.

“The remedy for contaminated soil is removal of the contaminated soil and replacement in the yard with clean soil. This is not rocket science. This is not difficult to do. This should not have taken this long,” Evans said.

Earlier this year, the EPA announced it would conduct additional soil sampling in the Town of Pines. With that announcement, Earthjustice and other stakeholders wrote a letter to the EPA that while it collects the samples it should “correct significant errors” in the data collected from the soil to “ensure a thorough and protective cleanup of contaminated soil.”

A consultant hired by NIPSCO in 2016 completed a feasibility study for the cleanup of coal ash contamination in the Town of Pines. The feasibility study was required under the Comprehensive Emergency Response, Compensation and Liability Act, according to the letter.

In its study, the consultant “performed a flawed assessment” of the “background” group, which represents soil that’s not contaminated by coal ash, concentrations of toxic coal ash constituents. The consultant found a very high level of arsenic in the town’s “background” soil, which resulted in “an inappropriate and likely dangerous cleanup standard for soil on residential properties,” according to the letter.

“If you have a sample that’s documented to have coal ash in it, it should not be in that background sample group. In fact, the arsenic in that sample was the highest in the whole group,” Evans said.

In its study, the consultant found that the arsenic level in the “background” soil was 30.1 parts per million. The safe level for arsenic, according to the EPA, is 0.67 parts per million. The cleanup level set for the Town of Pines is nearly 45 times that safe level, according to the letter.

The consultant’s background data was skewed by two samples that had unusually high levels of arsenic, Evans said. If the data isn’t corrected, Evans said, many residential properties won’t have their soil cleaned because it won’t meet the excess level of arsenic established in the study.

“The agency commonly requires cleanup to a ‘background’ level established in a feasibility study. Thus, it is extremely important to establish an honest and accurate background level so that the cleanup provides a high and appropriate level of protection to residents of the Town of Pines,” according to the letter.

Danielle Kaufman, an EPA spokeswoman, said the agency removed one data point from the background data set “because it might not have been representative of background levels for arsenic and thallium in the area.”

The agency recalculated the background threshold value, Kauffman said, which will result in the background threshold values for arsenic and thallium being slightly reduced and one previously sampled property will become eligible for cleanup.

“However, because this reduction in cleanup levels will be relatively small, the number of additional eligible properties is also expected to be small,” Kauffman said.

In the 1990s, the NIPSCO Generating Station in Michigan City and the Bailly Generating Station in Burns Harbor, which has since closed, didn’t have room on site for all the coal ash the stations generated, Evans said.

The companies used Yard 520, a landfill in the Town of Pines, to dump its coal ash, Evans said. But, the landfill was ultimately found to have leaked into the soil, Evans said. Additionally, the coal ash was made available to homeowners to use as a substitute for soil, she said, which contributed to the contamination of the drinking water.

Coal ash contains high levels of toxic heavy metals, which could cause cancer, according to Earthjustice.

“People in the affected area in the Town of Pines could no longer use their private wells because those wells were contaminated by the coal ash, whether it was from the leaking landfill, or the leaking from the roads or the leaking from coal ash in people’s yards,” Evans said.

The EPA has been aware of the coal ash contamination in the Town of Pines since May 2002. At that time, officials…