New library site does have contaminants, LDEQ says

While they say site is safe for library, school or home shouldn’t be built there

The soil where the East Bank Regional Library in Destrehan will be built contains two different kinds of chemical contaminatants, according to documentation provided by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

That’s because the site once belonged to British Petroleum Oil Refinery, so contaminants still exist on the land.

In December of 2006, BP gave 5.18 acres of land in Destrehan to St. Charles Parish to build the East Bank Regional Library.  In October of 2007, a “no further action” letter was issued by LDEQ that said it was okay to build the new library on the donated land.

The letter said that no further action was needed to prepare the site for the library.
However, according to the land’s legal donation document, the soil isn’t safe to build a school, hotel, motel, zoo, adult or child day care center, hospital or several other kinds of facilities.

Keith Casanova and John Halk, permitting officers with the LDEQ, concluded that the soil is safe for a library, but agree that a public school or residence shouldn’t be built on the site.
Halk and Casanova conducted various tests on the soil in conjunction with the Risk Evaluation Corrective Action Program.

“We use a classification system called NCAIS that helped us create terms or definitions for various types of sites, and based on those codes, the library falls under industry,” he said. “However, we chose to exclude schools – based on that code system – from being built on this site.”

Halk says a school is not considered an industrial/commercial facility but a library falls into that category according to their system.

“There won’t be anyone living at the library 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Halk said.

“There won’t be anyone eating the soil or playing around in the dirt,” Casanova added.

Neither Casanova nor Halk would state whether or not construction workers that will have to build the facility and work with the soil would be notified about the chemicals that exist there.

In a 2005 interview with the Times-Picayune, Halk said he thought the land donated to the parish by BP would remain vacant or be used the same way it was before the donation.

“Yes, I did say that, but the investigation of the soil samples was still pending at the time,” he said. “The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) examined the data in the report, and in April of this year, declared most of that site ready for reuse, including the part that the library is to be built on. They agreed with our findings.”

Gwen Dufrene, a Bayou Gauche resident, says that when she read the act of donation for the land, she noticed that the words “hazardous materials” were written on several pages of the document. She then sent a copy of the donation to scientist Stephen Lester.

Previously, Lester helped expose one of the most extreme cases of environmental poisoning ever reported by residents living in a small community – the Love Canal.  The families’ homes and a public school were built atop soil once owned by a chemical company and the people living there were exposed to over 21,000 toxic chemicals without knowing it.

“I sent a copy of BP’s act of donation and a copy of the ‘no further action’ letter about the property to Mr. Lester, who works for the Center for Health and Environmental Justice,” Dufrene said. “The ‘no further action letter,’ dated October 2007, states that there are two contaminants in the middle of the site where the library is going to be constructed.
“I am especially concerned about pilings being driven into this contaminated ground and what they will disturb underground.”

After reviewing the documentation from Dufrene, Lester is also concerned about the same issue.

“When you drive pilings into soil that contains contaminants, it can create a pathway for the toxins to float into whatever structure is being built,” he said. “I reviewed the ‘no further action’ letter from October 2007 and the act of donation to the parish and both documents leave more questions than answers.”

Dufrene says she’s concerned about the liability of the parish should somebody get sick, although LDEQ says the soil is safe enough to put a library.

“Can LDEQ guarantee that there is absolutely no chance of anyone getting sick or worse?” she said. “I don’t want to be able to say years from now ‘I told you so.’”
In April of 2008, St. Charles Parish received a second clearance letter from the LDEQ and the EPA stating that the land was ready for reuse.

No one will be rolling around in the dirt or playing with any soil out there,” Casanova said. “Our findings were cleared with EPA.”

Lester says the act of donation doesn’t make any sense because it states that a child care center, an adult day care center or a public school can’t be built on the site but  that a library can.

“What stuck out to me about this report is the lack of information,” he said. “There’s just not enough transparency for people in this community to understand what’s in this ‘no further action’ letter.”

Lester is currently working on a letter of his own to address his concerns.

“I am prepared to put my statements concerning the soil in writing,” Lester said. “As far as I’m concerned, the soil shouldn’t be tampered with based on the report that I’ve seen.

“Ms. Dufrene will receive a letter from me concerning this site and she should share it with as many people who will listen to her. There’s just not enough information in the ‘no further action’ report to determine that this site is safe enough to construct anything on.”