editorial

Vernay should get involved

It’s been nearly 20 years since Vernay Laboratories recognized that it had been dumping toxic waste at its manufacturing facility on Dayton Street. It’s been over 10 years since the company entered the Ohio EPA’s Voluntary Action Program to clean up the contamination, and seven years that the U.S. EPA has been overseeing the remediation plan.

In all these years, the leaders of the company that was founded in the village, gave generously and was a source of entrepreneurial pride, has been remarkably closed off from the village. It’s unfortunate that in a period of deep need for communication to resolve an issue that so deeply impacts both Vernay and the community, Vernay should be so silent. Silence is a backward response that does nothing to repair the trust that was breached by the health and environmental hazard that was created. Isn’t the new standard for environmental recovery one of rectitude and leadership, dialogue and problem-solving? The goal for both the community and the company should be to resolve the problem with the least harm to the company — that means meetings, discussions, forums, and exchange of as much information as possible.

Despite the lack of connectedness to the community, Vernay has, through its environmental consultants, Payne and Environ, proposed a cleanup measure for the site. The proposal suggests that maintaining the current level of groundwater extraction for the next 30 years is sufficient to keep the contaminants from migrating and to shield both humans and the environment from appreciable harm.

Meanwhile EHS, the environmental consultant for the group of neighbors who won the legal right to oversee the cleanup, states that Payne misinterpreted the geology of the aquifer below Vernay and that the groundwater extraction doesn’t pull out the calculated level of contaminants. EHS recommends Vernay intensify its remediation measures in order to neutralize a greater portion of the pollutants.

The EPA is deliberating on both reports and will consult with Vernay before opening public discussions on the best course of action. Though it is premature to judge, it isn’t too soon to be reviewing the proposals and thinking about what is best for the community and for Vernay.

While the calculations of the EHS team are likely accurate, the question is would additional measures make an appreciable difference in protecting the health of humans and the environment? According to geologist Peter Townsend and environmental consultant Dick Robertson, both of whom are members of the Yellow Springs community, additional measures do not appear to add a significant level of protection. Because the main contaminants, PCE and TCE, are dense nonaqueous phase liquids, they sink, and do not readily surface in harmful quantities. And the additional cost of the measures proposed by EHS (which Townsend estimated could cost 10 times the amount of Vernay’s proposed plan) is in disproportion to the added protection they appear to provide.

Yet, shouldn’t Vernay do everything possible to correct a mistake it made, knowingly, and for many years?

Villagers have widely differing opinions on this issue, and it behooves Vernay to act as a responsible corporation by helping the community to understand what we’re facing. Not doing so, even for liability concerns, will only drive the wedge in deeper.

—Lauren Heaton