BEACH BRAWL: The Times Beach Action Group Begins its Protests in Earnest

April 6, 1994

Press critics may find it comforting to know that a
newspaper is ultimately responsible for the imbroglio
called Times Beach.

The town in southwest St. Louis County began as a river
resort back in the mid-1920s, when the now-defunct St.
Louis Star Times sold property along the Meramec to
increase circulation. A six-month subscription qualified
a reader to purchase a lot for $67.50.

Of course, this was in the halcyon days before anyone
ever heard of dioxin, television or guerrilla theater.
Last Friday, those three modern inventions collided at
the Lewis Road exit to Interstate 44 in front of the
barricaded Route 66 bridge that once served the
now-defunct town.

About 30 members of the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG)
began arriving around 11 a.m. dressed in white "moon"
suits. They came to protest the planned Times Beach
dioxin incinerator, which they believe will be unsafe if
built.

In some ways, the original organizer of the protest was
Russell Bliss, the waste oil-hauler who unwittingly
sprayed the streets of Times Beach and other sites with
dioxin-tainted oil in the early 1970s. At the time, he
was just trying to keep the dust down. Bliss didn't know
his actions would make him the founder of an
environmental-protest movement and the provider of job
security for countless state and federal bureaucrats.
Those bureaucrats with the representatives of Syntex
Inc., the company liable for the cleanup, have been
creeping ahead since their 1990 consent decree to build
the Times Beach incinerator, despite opposition by the
St. Louis County Council and the disapproval of voters
in St. Louis County, who rejected the proposal in a
non-binding referendum.

Last year, a federal judge halted a similar dioxin
incinerator in Jacksonville, Ark., because the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not be sued
until after the completion of a cleanup. 

TBAG would prefer that the toxic waste be stored until a
proven technology is developed to destroy the dioxin.
State and federal studies recommended exactly the same
thing a decade ago, but the soil was never collected.
Since then, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources
(DNR) and the EPA have decided to burn the tainted soil
at Times Beach. If built, the facility would also torch
the dioxin from 26 other locations in eastern Missouri. 
TBAG has demanded that the DNR reopen the consent decree
on the incinerator on the incinerator so the public can
voice opposition to its construction. The press release
distributed in advance of the demonstration warned of
acts of civil disobedience. In response, a handful of
St. Louis County police and a highway patrolman invited
themselves to the occasion. 

For some, it was definitely an event worth recording.
The TBAG members didn't even have to wait for the TV
stations to arrive before the video cameras started
rolling. One camera was aimed at the protesters from the
security shack. later, a second cameraman who refused to
identify himself, began shooting footage from a doorway
of the rehabbed project offices across the road.
The protesters milled around the parking lot of that
building, talking to reporters and chanting
anti-incinerator sound bites. Most of those in "moon"
suits were college-aged, so it was easy enough to
identify the locals. The latter was Paulette Taykowski,
43, a lifetime resident of nearby Crescent, Mo. She and
her husband, Joseph, criticized the way the Times Beach
dioxin site has already disrupted their lives and both
questioned the efficacy of incinerating the waste.

The leaders of the demonstration used a bullhorn to get
their points across.

"We want a congressional investigation into the coverup
that's been perpetrated by the EPA and industry to
mislead the public about the dangers of dioxin," said
Tammy Shea. She was referring to industry sponsored
reports that diminish the dangers that dioxin poses to
humans. "We are also asking for an investigation into
the unethical relationship between the EPA and the
chemical waste industry. They are working on behalf of
profit not people."

When activist Don Fitz got his turn at the bullhorn he
said the preliminary finding of the EPA's long-delayed
dioxin reassessment reaffirmed that dioxin causes
cancer. The latest evidence also shows that dioxin may
enhance other carcinogens already in the body. "If this
incinerator goes up, the effect it will have will be to
increase the level of dioxin that an already-exposed
population has," said Fitz.

As part of the well-coordinated protest, activists set
up two mock smokestacks made of plywood. They then lit
smoke bombs attached to the cutouts and un furled a
banner across the road that read: "No dioxin
incinerator."

For the grand finale, three protesters walked behind the
gate on the bridge and were summarily busted for
trespassing. One slumped to the ground, while another
held a smoke bomb aloft like the Statue of Liberty.
Meanwhile, their comrades shouted slogans and lobbed
more smoke bombs in the direction of the arresting
officers. A reporter began gasping for air and waving
her arms. The police lieutenant checked the shoulder of
his starched white uniform for smoke damage. A small
plane buzzed over the gathering bearing yet another
motto of opposition.

It all seemed like a movie set, and, to a degree, it was
just that. But with the TV cameras trained on the smoke
and the air show, a moment of reckoning almost went
unnoticed. It came as 19-year-old Lydia Roberts of
Eureka waited to be placed in the backseat of the squad
car. Her hands were handcuffed. Her face and the
arresting officer's were inches apart. "I'm doing this
for family," she said. "What about your children? What
about the land?"

The cop didn't answer.

(first published in the Riverfront Times – St. Louis)

–C.D. Stelzer (stlreporter@gmail.com)

Death in Venice: Following the trail of unanswered questions

Residents are concerned about mortality levels near the site of a 20-year-old radioactive waste clean-up. Canvassing the neighborhood 2

Diane Ratliff, a native of Venice, Ill., remembers when the dump trucks first started lumbering up and down Meredosia Avenue in the early 1990s. She then surmised the drivers must have made a wrong turn. “Where the hell were they going?” she asked herself.

Nobody informed her or any of the residents of the neighborhood that a radioactive clean-up was taking place down the block.

That was 20 years ago, and Ratliff, a special education teacher for the East St. Louis School District, is still searching for answers as to whether exposure to radioactive waste may have affected the health of her family and neighbors. She is among a group of citizens who are now pressing the federal government for an epidemiological study of the area to determine the impact that the radioactive site may have had on public health.

In 1989, the Consolidated Aluminum Corp. (Conalco) and Dow Chemical Co. began to quietly clean up a 40-acre site adjacent to a foundry in Madison, Ill., that the two companies formerly owned. The plant and dump site are both located on the boundary between the Metro East cities of Madison and Venice. [read earlier story by clicking here]

The clean-up entailed dividing the area into a massive grid made up of hundreds of squares and then using a complicated formula to measure the contamination levels in each of them. To carry out the job, contractors constructed a laboratory, rail spur and loading station.

By the time the project ended in December 1992 more than 105,000 tons of thorium-contaminated slag had been loaded into 978 rail cars and shipped to a low-level radioactive waste facility in Utah, according to a final report prepared for the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety (IDNS), the state agency responsible for overseeing the clean-up. The 1992 report states: “Because of the proximity of the contaminated area to a residential neighborhood, and the inconvenience that the construction activity imposed upon the neighborhood, the construction was done in a manner such that all contaminated material above natural background was removed and the area was backfilled immediately. ”

Larry Burgan, a community activist and former foundry employee, has doubts about that conclusion. “It makes it sound like they were doing the residents a favor,” says Burgan. “But they also could have been doing it quick to get it out of sight [and] out of mind.” Canvassing the neighborhood

Earlier this summer, Burgan and Ratliff’s brother, Calvin Ratliff, canvassed the neighborhood, asking among other things whether residents had ever been informed of the safety risks posed by the radioactive waste or its removal. None of the residents with whom they spoke indicated that they had ever been contacted.

Instead, contractors appeared to have launched the first phase of the clean-up without warning. At 8 a.m., March 5, 1990, heavy equipment operators began excavating more than 15,000 cubic feet of radioactively contaminated soil along Rogan Avenue, a neighborhood street that borders the 40-acre site. The work continued for the next two days. Contamination in this area was found from six inches to five feet below the surface, according to the final report. To ensure compliance with state safety regulations, Conalco and Dow installed eight air-monitoring stations to measure airborne concentrations of contaminants during the clean-up, but a portable generator that powered one monitor was stolen early in the clean-up and never replaced. Despite the loss, the work continued and the final report dismissed the significance of the incomplete data.

The assessment, prepared by Roy F. Weston Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., does stipulate, however, that one of remaining air monitors registered high concentrations of radioactivity on numerous occasions and exceeded permissible levels at least three times. But the risk to residents was deemed safe because all the radioactive contaminants were “assumed” to be Thorium 228 and not its more potent sister, Thorium 232. Moreover, concentrations of radioactive airborne contaminants were averaged out over several months to lower the estimated dosage to within established limits set by IDNS.

The history of radioactive contamination at the foundry dates back to 1957, when Dow began processing uranium for fuel rods under a subcontract with St. Louis-based Mallinckdrodt Chemical Co., which was working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The plant was one of hundreds of low-priority radioactive sites nationwide identified by the federal government’s Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program in the 1990s. The subsequent government-mandated clean-up, which was overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2000, focused mainly on uranium contamination inside facility and did not include additional monitoring or remediation at the adjacent 40-acre site.

The thorium waste was the byproduct of another facet of the foundry’s operations — production of lightweight alloys used for military and aerospace applications. Between 1960 and 1973 Dow dumped millions of pounds of sludge containing 4 to 8 percent thorium behind the plant on the adjacent property. After Conalco took over the operation, the dumping continued for years, including monthly shipments of thorium waste produced at Dow facilities in Bay City and Midland, Mich.

Company guidelines also permitted up to 50 pounds of thorium sludge per month to be poured directly down the sewer. The radioactive contamination could also have been released into the environment by the plant’s several 20-foot diameter exhaust fans. Venice waste site

The Ratliff family has lived in the brick bungalow at Meredosia Avenue and College Street next to the foundry since 1950. Louis D. Ratliff, Diane Ratliff’s late father, built the house. He died in 1974 from brain cancer. An informal survey of a two-block stretch of Meredosia Avenue conducted earlier this year yielded anecdotal evidence of 44 cases of cancer or lung disease among longtime residents, many of whom are also now deceased.

“Before sunset there was always a cloud emanating from the plant,” says Ratliff, who attended elementary school across the street from her family home. The special education teacher now worries about spots that she says have developed on her lungs. Ratliff also worries about her siblings, whom she says have been diagnosed with sarcoidosis; a debilitating, chronic disease that commonly causes inflammation of the lungs and other organs, and in some cases can be deadly.

The clean-up of the site that was initiated 20 years ago did nothing to allay her fears. It only left unanswered questions. “They were supposed to have examined the yards for contaminants,” says Ratliff. “But that didn’t happen.”

— C.D. Stelzer (stlreporter@gmail.com)

THE JAMES GANG: Prelude to an Environmental Protest Movement

April 28, 1993

When a call was placed to the billboard Saturday morning, the environmentalist answered his cellular phone in a businesslike manner. “Times Beach Action Group,” he said.
Under the cloak of darkness two environmental guerrillas scaled the Meramec Caverns billboard located approximately one mile west of Route 141 on the north side of Interstate 44. Jesse James — the 19th-century bandit who is advertised on the billboard as having hid out in the cave — would probably have been awed by the outlaw environmentalists who temporarily robbed him of his glory. The well-planned assault on the sign was coordinated with a radio equipped ground crew and a press spokesperson. The operation also included the use of code names and phrases. One participant even referred to the group’s headquarters as a “safe house.”

The climbers hauled up provisions, handcuffed themselves to safety cables and waited throughout the blustery predawn hours on a 100-foot high perch.  By about 9 a.m., the duo unfurled their message to the world and in the process covered up Jesse James’ name and most of the giant Meramec Caverns sign with a banner that read: STOP THE INCINERATOR AT TIMES BEACH. The action was taken in advance of a nationwide bus tour that will stop at Times Beach on Thursday. The caravan has been organized by the environmental group Greenpeace to draw attention to the hazard of incinerating dioxin. The Times Beach incinerator, when completed, will burn the hazardous waste.

A demonstration against the planned incinerator and the hazards of dioxin disposal throughout the country will be held near Times Beach at the Lewis Road exit to Interstate 44 at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. At 7 p.m. on the same date, opponents of the Times Beach incinerator will gather at Pacific, Mo. City Hall to hear Greenpeace scientist Pat Costner and Vietnam veteran George Claxton speak on the dioxin problem.

One of the sign-climbers, who confessed to being scared of heights, explained why he took part in the act of civil disobedience. “If you try to work just within due process with the big guys, you always lose,” he said. The environmentalist said the goal of the Times Beach Action Group is to create grassroots opposition to the planned incinerator. The risks of incinerating toxic wastes overshadow violating private-property rights, according to the environmentalist. “They (the police) may come for us, they may not. We feel like, if they arrest us for trespassing, we’re just trying to keep the EPA and the (Times Beach) incinerator from trespassing through our air with toxic emissions.”

–C.D. Stelzer (stlreporter@gmail.com)