Asarco comments 3 and 10
PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING #2 COMMENT AND RESPONSE REPORT
Loop 375 Border Highway West Extension Project
December 8, 2011
Page 1 of 19
The following are the six questions asked in the Comment Form (please see Appendix E to view the full form).
1. For each of the recommended reasonable alternative segments listed below, please indicate your preference by checking a box and stating any specific comments.
2. Do you own/lease property within the study area?
3. Are you aware of any areas that we should be avoid that are not shown on any of the exhibits? (i.e. cemeteries, hazmat sites, historic structures, etc.)
4. Do you have any comments on the Need and Purpose for this project?
5. Do you have any comments on the Project Coordination Plan?
6. Use this space to provide any additional input or concerns. Be sure to identify if your comment is related to a specific alternative.
# Name Verbal/ Written Comments TxDOT Response
1 Michael O.
Herrera,
CNU‐A
The only statement that I have is that I want to make sure that all
consideration is being given to transit to avail itself of the loop
that is going to be created This will help us to move the
population expeditiously and be able to keep them off the road
so therefore improving the function of the highway that’s going
to be developed, helping congestion by moving people through
mass transit.
Comment noted. The transit alternative solution was
considered in the previous major investment study conducted
in 1999 and was not recommended as the appropriate
solution to handle the need for a controlled‐access facility and
parallel alternate to I‐10 to alleviate current congestion.
Transit has been carried forward by others such as the city of
El Paso as separate projects.
2 Osvaldo Velez Well, my comment is that to do a side street on 375 coming in
from the – from the east and opening the – if it’s possible, Coles
Street and –we, Park Street is already open but leaving Park
Street, Campbell, Kansas, Mesa, Oregon and Santa Fe open so we
can have access to Segundo Barrio and we can have access going
3 Heather
McMurray
I've been researching ASARCO for seven years now. I have a
master's in biology, I'm a certified high school science teacher. I
was a member of Get the Lead Out when we went to the air
hearing for ASARCO's permit in 2005, and kept researching
ASARCO working with the group in Sunland Park called the
Sunland Park Grassroots Environmental Group.
We discovered that people weren't being told everything about
Verbal/ Written Comments TxDOT Response
the contamination at ASARCO. And in 2006 I was able to get a 73‐
page confidential for settlement purposes only EPA/federal
Department of Justice/ASARCO document from the ‐‐ someone in
the Department of Justice under a Texas Public Information Act
request.
The document told us that in no uncertain terms that ASARCO
had been running a multistate illegal, unpermitted hazardous
waste incinerator for almost ten years, maybe longer. We know
that they ran it between 1991 pre‐ConTop ‐‐ the ConTop
furnaces, spelled C‐0‐N‐T‐0‐P. They had the world's two largest
ConTop furnaces from ‐‐ so from 1991 to 1998.
Representative Reyes went on record with the El Paso Times
after I got this document in 2006. He said that ASARCO had paid
millions on the condition that the details of what it had done
would never become public. We've been after the details now
since I got that document in 2006. It's been five years. We've
dealt with two different EPA administrations, the recent one for
two years, and we still don't have the details of what they did.
We are still asking for the manifests that were listed by number ‐‐
ID number in that confidential 1998 document.
If TxDOT, the EPA, TCEQ and other companies and agencies ‐‐ for
instance, Grupo Mexico who bought ASARCO in 1999 ‐‐ if all of
them had to deal with the facts publicly, the details of what
ASARCO had done, none of this would be possible. None of this
highway development by or through ASARCO could happen
without the proper cleanup. In other words, they're getting away
with ignoring some pretty toxic material, and this happened
because the federal Department of Justice allowed the ASARCO
bankruptcy court to skip, go ‐‐ to skip or ignore the ASARCO
liability from the materials it handled between 1991 and 1998.
They were never discussed during the bankruptcy, never brought
up in the bankruptcy and they were never assigned any damage,
you know, the payment that they had to make to remediate
these materials.
It was, as Representative Reyes said, that they had made a deal
to keep the details secret. And we believe that it's because we
now know ASARCO was disposing of Department of Energy
wastes and so were several of the companies caught sending
materials here to El Paso for illegal incineration. So every time
they move dirt in this area, every time anyone works in this area,
anytime anyone drinks water taken from this area we run a risk
of encountering one of those hazardous wastes that nobody
wants to talk about and that they refuse to test for.
What's happening is that they want this land development so bad
and they want the port of entries developed so badly and the
railroads to go through and all this development to happen that
everyone is willing to just ignore the fact that ASARCO burned
the stuff for nearly ten years, it's here and that ignoring it isn't
going to make it go away. And if they want to construct these
highways properly, if the EPA wants to deliver honest science,
then they will tell us what these materials are instead of
spending over‐‐ almost $500,000 on testing and not finding
anything is what's happening with the cleanup. They would
spend 20,000 to get a complete list of the metals present at the
site like at least one resident has done here, and they haven't
done it.
They refuse to let us get samples of a distillation unit that
handled the water for the entire plant that was removing low
level radioactive waste from the plant's process water. And then
when they demolished it, got rid of it, sold off the metal,
whatever, then they said to us, Tell us where to test to find this
stuff. So what they're doing is getting rid of the stuff and making
it harder for the average citizen to ever be able to prove the stuff
is floating around down there.
And we rely on our government to deliver honest services, to
provide honest science, to disclose what hazardous materials are
present, and I was really sad to see on one of these charts that
some of the options going through or near the ASARCO site claim
that there weren't hazardous materials present. And I'm like,
How can they say that? Everything within nine miles of the
smelter is contaminated.
And if you look at the ASARCO Tacoma, Washington, smelter,
their contamination went out 30 miles. So it's a bad situation. We
do need transportation options, but we should be planning these
with the knowledge of what we're actually dealing with, not just
ignoring the problem that is there.
They're going to end up putting these roads in that they've
shown here, they've discussed it with city council. Representative
Pickett said that he would hold ASARCO's feet to the fire and he
never did. They claim that voters get to vote on these options,
they claim that this is a public hearing when it's a series of charts
and you get to make comments and the comments are never
really ‐‐ never really make any impact on these designs. They' do
what they want to do.
The area along Executive drive, west of Executive drive, has
already been platted and building has started there. All that the
city will recognize it's contaminated with is lead and it goes on
like that. I don't see how they can build here and protect the
workers building the highway and protect the residents' children
who will move into the area and protect the drivers driving
through from being exposed to this stuff for the next hundred
years unless they spend the money that they want to spend
making this highway on remediation of the site instead.
I heard that it will cost over 600 million to build all this. Well, why
aren't they spending the 600 million to clean up the ASARCO site
correctly and to protect our river from the plume that's
underneath ASARCO that's impinging upon the canal in the Rio
Grande as we speak? Why aren't they spending the money that
way? Why are they bringing more people in, creating a traffic jam
at this spot by building all these other parts of the outer circle
around El Paso and leaving this to last so that people ‐‐ there's
this ‐‐ going to be a traffic jam. And people will want it built
simply out of desperation because they can't get anywhere.
I think that the engineers involved aren't chemical engineers. I
think that the people in our government who have worked for
previous administrations and now this one don't care and I think
that it's wrong to build roads through this, disturb it, have
railroads going through it, have people living on it. And some day,
it may take a hundred years but ‐‐ you know, it's wrong to disturb
it. It should be left alone and made into a no man's land until it
has proper cleanup.
The EPA wants it demolished ‐‐ ASARCO demolished as fast as
possible, to have it paved over to reduce the chances of our
exposure, but they won't say exposure to what. They're being
gagged by what Representative Reyes described, the millions that
ASARCO paid on that deal to keep the details secret. And yet
we're being exposed to this stuff and the people who build this
highway are too and the workers presently cleaning up ASARCO
are also. And it's a real shame. Why can't we down here along
the border get the same kind of expertise, the same kind of
access to science, the same kind of access to well thought out
projects that consider all their actual information, not just what
contractors want us to hear? Why on the border is it always this
way?
It's extremely frustrating to me. This is an environmental sacrifice
zone, environmental justice zone. It is being ignored by the EPA,
it's being ignored by the TCEQ and now it's being ignored by
TxDOT, and it's not being ignored by the community. Some day
someone's going to be accountable for the children who grow up
here who will be able to say they've only lived here and they're
neighbor only lived here and they grew up and they have all
these horrible things happening to them. And it ‐‐ it's just a
legacy that we don't deserve down here. We don't ‐‐ we
shouldn't have to live with.
They should be getting this ‐‐ the kind ‐‐ they should be getting
public comment before they start to design all this intricate stuff,
and they're not. It's all about people making money instead of
spending the money on our future generations, wisely growing
children who are healthy and removing the costs that we have to
deal with for children who have behavioral disorders, learning
disabilities, the social costs that go with that. It's wrong to pass
those costs on to families just so that contractors can make more
money planning all this.
10 Heather Mcmurray
No‐Build Alternative: Yes. Google ASARCO secret document.
Why doesn’t Texas spend the more than ½ billion dollars on
correct‐remediation of ASARCO site (see 73 page 1998‐Federal
DOJ Confidential for settlement purposes only ASARCO
document NY Times 10/06).
3) ASARCO and Trust not disclosing all HAZMAT materials.
4) The need and purpose are being created by building more
roads up to this project areas and ignoring the hazmat materials.
5) Not enough public input.
6) TxDOT EIS contractor testing for hazmat materials should 1)
Run a full metals panel (over 100 metals) and test pond sludge (at
ponding areas) down at least 3 ft with a core (not an auger), attic
dusts and/or slag (from 1991‐1998)
Protect workers with Hazmat gear.
-------------------
*****Comments noted.
a) To the extent the project would affect the ASARCO site,
TxDOT will investigate and document in the EIS any
relevant issues related to contamination. TxDOT has not
concealed and will not conceal any relevant information
regarding contamination that it may discover. TxDOT has
been proactive in engaging the public on relevant issues
related to the ASARCO site. A second Public Scoping******
