Letter to Gina McCarthy, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency - Cleanup of the Diaz Chemical Superfund Site in Holley, NY

Letter

Dear EPA Administrator,

I write to ask for the EPA's continued attention to the cleanup of the Diaz Chemical Superfund site in Holley, New York. It has been over twelve years since the now defunct Diaz Chemical facility accidentally released a noxious 75-gallon cloud of steam, toluene, and 2-choloro-6-fluorophenol (CFP) that blew through the Village causing homes to be contaminated and residents to experience sore throats, headaches, eye irritations, nosebleeds and skin rashes.

I appreciate that the EPA recognized the five-acre Diaz Chemical site as dangerous and added it to the Superfund list of the most contaminated hazardous waste sites in 2004 when Diaz went bankrupt and out of business. Subsequently EPA conducted approximately $12 million in initial clean-up activities between 2003-2007 including the removal of over 100,000 gallons of waste and the purchase of eight neighboring homes whose owners were relocated by the EPA. This culminated in the EPA selecting a final $14.5 million cleanup plan in 2012 to return the site to productive commercial use by treating and/or remove the volatile and semi-volatile contaminants remaining in the soil and groundwater and demolishing any on-site buildings required to gain access to contaminated soil, as well as putting the eight houses back on the market for sale since EPA determined they are free of any contamination from the Diaz release.

But in the nearly two years since the EPA selected the final cleanup plan the remediation of the Diaz Chemical Superfund site remains far from complete and the eight homes have not been put up for sale. The result has been a drain to the Village of Holley's tax base. With the eight homes formerly valued at a combined estimated $700,000 off the tax rolls in addition to the five-acre Diaz site, the Village continues to lose an estimated $100,000-$300,000 each year. Moreover the dilapidated contaminated site is a blight on the Village's neighboring residential area.

I understand the lack of adequate funding in the Superfund trust has limited EPA's progress to complete remediation work on sites like Diaz. Without question polluters should be required to again pay into the Superfund trust to safeguard taxpayers from having to otherwise shoulder the full cost to cleanup these abandoned and contaminated industrial sites. That is why I am supporting legislation to reinstate the now-expired requirement that petroleum and chemical industries must pay into the Superfund trust and likewise will support increased annual appropriations for the EPA to conduct remediation at Superfund sites.

In turn, I ask that the EPA to apply any funding increase to expeditiously complete the $14.5M final cleanup work to the Diaz Chemical site. Additionally I ask that you swiftly move to put the cleared eight properties back on the market and provide a specific timeline to Village officials to detail how this will be accomplished within the next 90 days.

I appreciate your consideration of these requests.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer
United States Senator

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