"The EPA has spent over $30 million to clean up a Pensacola site contaminated with dioxin, yet has failed to install adequate controls to prevent the spread of tainted groundwater and soil."
"The Environmental Protection Agency may have wasted or risked millions of dollars by failing to prevent the spread of contamination hazardous to human health at a Superfund site in Pensacola, Florida, an agency watchdog report found.
An EPA Inspector General’s report released last week said the agency failed to plug existing wells near the Superfund site that could be used by private property owners in the neighborhood to pump contaminated groundwater, and did not prevent those property owners from digging new wells and carrying out soil-disturbing activities, such as home renovations and landscaping.
The 18-acre site at issue, American Creosote Works, three blocks north of Pensacola Bay, is a former wood treatment plant that operated from 1902 to 1981, using creosote and pentachlorophenol (PCP) to treat railroad ties and telephone poles. In 2021, Inside Climate News wrote about the risks associated with the site, which is one of only a handful of Superfund sites nationwide that the EPA considers both an uncontrolled threat to human health and at risk of climate change-related events like flooding and hurricanes."
Katie Surma reports for Inside Climate News April 23, 2024.
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