Report from attendee on Meeting on J&J Chemical Fire

August 1, 2010

Dear Friends:
 
I attended the community public meeting tonight at the Athens Clarke County Library to discuss the J&J Chemical fire.  The event was hosted by several local environmental organizations.   Ben Emanuel of the Oconee River Project gave an informative presentation followed by public questions and concerns that will be compiled to submit to environmental health agencies and elected leaders.
 
The consensus of the evening was that citizens felt helpless to this chemical emergency.  No public warning system was in place it appears.   Information has and continues to trickle in as to the environmental health impacts.  Confusion in obtaining critical data, reporting feedback, and lack of accountability from public officials and agencies has created a great sense of anger and frustration.  
 
Two contaminants of concern are formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde.   Formaldehyde is a carcinogen that has been the subject of several of our meetings since local industries in the Athens and NE GA region emit this toxicant.  In the past when business was booming, formaldehyde emission permit increases were common.
Formaldehyde is also the toxicant responsible for unsafe levels of exposure in FEMA trailers issued to displaced hurricane residents.
 
Glutaraldehyde is toxic and is one of the chemicals dumped near Pittard Road by duPont/InVista through their land application system until 1994.   Since then, duPont/InVista hooked up to Athens Clarke County to dispose of their wastewater.  
 
EPA Region IV was invited to attend our meeting and discuss the expensive perfluorochemical testing they promised to us in May to ease our anxiety regarding this group of persistent and toxic chemicals.    PFCs are used in firefighter foam to extinguish fires, but we are not sure at this point if water was the exclusive agent used on last week's chemical fire.    We want the EPA test results for background data to compare before and after these contaminants of concern were released into the environment by the fire and runoff.   There are industries in this area known to use perfluorochemicals.
 
EPA Region IV declined our invitation.
 
One source I spoke with tonight said there were haz mat dressed workers at the burned site today, but he was not sure what was taking place with the heavy equipment and silt fences in place.
 
After attending a terrorism preparedness last year at UGA, there are homeland security measures in place to deal with chemical emergencies.   Will we know if they were successfully triggered with this chemical fire?   What is the protocol now to address the environmental health fallout that so many citizens are concerned about?
 
Please join us tomorrow, Tuesday, August 2nd, at 12:00 noon on North Avenue in the DFCS conference room to hear our Georgia neighbor, Ms. Connie Thomas, tell her community story about being poisoned by an industry release.   She will share what she has done on a local, state, and federal level to insure a proper chemical emergency response system is in place. . .unlike what happened to her community and now what is happening in Athens.
 
Hope to see you,
 
Jill

Oconee River Chemical Spill more details >>