Leadwood is calling in Brockovich

Kim McGuire

LEADWOOD, MO. — A heavy downpour in May uncovered something hidden in the
soil on Gary Griffith's property.

Cow bones. Hundreds of them, Griffith estimates. Some were almost complete
skeletons. Others were fragments — a rib here, a vertebra there.

"Honestly, it looked like a snowstorm had hit," Griffith said.

The bones and accompanying waste — ear tags and other trash from a Farmington
sale barn — were deposited on Griffith's property by a contractor for the Doe
Run Co., which was attempting to jump-start vegetation growth on his property
that was contaminated with lead.

That incident and a string of others has riled some local residents, many of
whom have lived next to Doe Run's piles of mine tailings for most of their
lives.

They've grown so frustrated with Doe Run that they did the one thing they
thought might strike fear in the heart of a big industrial company — they
called Erin Brockovich.

Now, Brockovich, probably the nation's best known environmental rabble-rouser
thanks to the 2000 movie based on her life, is slated to be in Leadwood on July
20 with a team of attorneys, a toxicologist, an air quality specialist and
other investigators.

Doe Run officials say they haven't spoken with Brockovich but are aware of her
inquiries. They stand behind their tailings cleanup work, which has been
approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In 1992, the EPA declared six large mine tailing piles in St. Francois County
part of the federal Superfund cleanup project. The Leadwood pile adjacent to
the Griffith property is one of those six sites. Others are in Bonne Terre,
Desloge and Park Hills. Each is connected to historic lead mining in an area of
Missouri known as the "Old Lead Belt" south of St. Louis.

For more than a decade, Doe Run has led the cleanup, stabilizing the piles to
minimize residents' exposure to lead dust. More than 400 homes near the site
have also had lead contaminated soil replaced as part of the cleanup work,
according to EPA records.

"I think we're doing a lot with the resources we have," said John Carter, the
company's mining properties manager. "We have accomplished a lot."

Brockovich was called by Christy Briley, who lives near the Leadwood pile.
Briley contacted Brockovich following an incident earlier this year in which a
cleanup contractor spilled some sludge on her property en route to the pile.

She says the sludge contained human waste, tampons, condoms and other trash.

"We couldn't get any local legislation done on it and we had recently seen
'Erin Brockovich' on television so I thought, 'I'll call her.' And before I
knew it, they called back."

While the sludge spill initially got the attention of Brockovich and her team
of environmental investigators, they are looking into a number of far-ranging
issues connected to Doe Run operations.

Robert Bowcock is the lead environmental investigator on Brockovich's team,
which is currently working on 35 sites around the country. A California water
quality expert, he says Leadwood is in the top 10 of those projects when it
comes to environmental damage.

"This is a situation that's absolutely out of control," he said.

Bowcock said he's most concerned about how the company — under the EPA's
supervision — has managed the cleanup of the Big River piles, allowing some
residents to be exposed to lead dust. He said he's also concerned about the
adequacy of yard cleanups in St. Francois County.

And then there's the issue of the Griffith property. Bowcock visited the site
after Doe Run removed many of the bones.

"I'm sorry, but that one just threw me for a loop," Bowcock said, describing
how he saw an animal skull that still had a harness on it.

Carter said the company was trying to foster the growth of vegetation on
Griffith's property by applying manure from a sale barn. He said he did not
know there were so many bones in the material. Neither did EPA officials in
Kansas City who oversee the Big River work.

"That's something they need to look a little more at before they buy soil,"
said Jason Gunter, the Big River project manager for the EPA. "It needs to be
composted per state regulations."

For the most part, Gunter said EPA officials believe Doe Run has done a good
job cleaning up the Big River site. Three of the piles have been stabilized by
placing soil on the top and rocks on the sides to prevent erosion.

Gunter, however, acknowledged that the company will likely be a year behind
schedule on the Leadwood pile. It is not slated for completion until 2011.

Carter said declining lead prices have made it difficult for the company to pay
for the remaining cleanup work.

"In St. Francois County, we're working in three different places," Carter said.
"We have a lot going on."

One of the primary cleanup challenges the company faces is trespassers who ride
all-terrain vehicles through the piles, Carter said.

Vandals have stolen "No trespassing" signs the company placed at the piles and
also cut fences in the past, he said.

In addition to spurring the growth of grass on the piles, the sludge was
intended to deter residents from playing in the piles of mine waste, Carter
said.

"We were hoping that putting sludge there would take the fun out of riding ATVs
out there," he said.

While the EPA approved Doe Run's use of sludge on the tailings, that practice
may soon be minimized.

That's because the EPA is considering taking 300,000 tons of soil from lead
contaminated yards in Hillsboro and De Soto and using it to cover the Leadwood
pile to help reduce the risk of dust emissions there.

Gunter said the Jefferson County soil contains about half the amount of lead as
that of the Leadwood pile.

"It's really a win-win situation for everyone," said Gunter, explaining how the
move would defray taxpayers' cost of disposing the Jefferson County soil in a
landfill.

Nonetheless, the agency has held off from finalizing that plan due to community
opposition in Leadwood.

Tara Lewis, a Leadwood resident, said she doesn't understand why the EPA would
want to pay to move the yard soil to a community that's already got its own
lead problems.

She questions the adequacy of the cleanup of her own yard.

"I think what they think is that they've got a bunch of country hicks down here
who are not going to do anything," Lewis said. "They're wrong."

At a recent meeting in Leadwood, Bowcock told Lewis and other Leadwood
residents that he and other members of Brockovich's team were going to review
every aspect of the Big River cleanup. EPA officials confirmed this week that
they have spoken with Bowcock on a regular basis for a few weeks now.

When asked by Leadwood residents whether the team planned to initiate a
lawsuit, Bowcock said that would ultimately be up to them.

"I can promise you we will leave no stone unturned," Bowcock said. "We will
find e-mails, memos, documents, everything. It's going to get very
uncomfortable around here."

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/C99E6A24899C60AF862575ED0005DCF7?OpenDocument

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