Superfund in Kansas

Floor Speech

SUPERFUND IN KANSAS -- (Senate - June 11, 2009)

Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I rise today to discuss an issue that is one of these "believe it or not'' issues of waste and abuse concerning billions of tax dollars and stimulus funding. I have some good news and then I have some bad news to report.

First the good news. In the last 24 hours, we have been able to reverse a policy that would have used stimulus money to pave the same road twice within a matter of months. I said yesterday that did not pass the Kansas commonsense test or, for that matter, any State's commonsense test, and would be a huge abuse of taxpayer dollars. We have reversed this plan, this silly plan, in a bipartisan way.

I wish to personally thank Vice President Biden, the man charged with overseeing all of the stimulus spending, for taking action to correct this abuse after I contacted him. I really thank the Vice President because the White House moved and the Vice President moved in an expeditious fashion, and I, quite frankly, didn't expect they could move that fast, but they got the job done.

The Vice President will be in Kansas today, and I asked him to review this rather ridiculous example of wasteful spending occurring in Cherokee County, KS, just a short 2-hour drive south on U.S. Highway 96 from where the Vice President will be. You see, a section of old Highway 96 would have been resurfaced with stimulus funds. Then portions of an EPA Superfund site would have been cleaned up with stimulus funds, and the heavy equipment used for the cleanup would have damaged the newly resurfaced highway, so they would have to go back in and do the highway again. Once this cleanup was complete, additional stimulus funds would have gone to repair the road damage caused by the heavy trucks. Taxpayers would have paid almost $1 million to fix this road twice.

Fortunately, in working with the Vice President, we now have media reports that the Superfund cleanup will occur prior to any roadwork. That is the good news. Again, I credit the Vice President and his staff and his team.

Now for the bad news. While this spending issue has been fixed, there is a much larger spending issue affecting dozens of Kansas families in Cherokee County, KS, and that is still a major problem. I am going to urge the Vice President to again provide leadership. He is the self-proclaimed new sheriff in town. I am an honorary sheriff of Dodge City, KS, my hometown. So from one sheriff to another, I would simply say to the Vice President: Sheriff, I will ride shotgun or you can ride shotgun. We have the problem only half solved.

You see, in April, EPA Region 7 issued a press release saying Cherokee County would receive up to $25 million from the stimulus. According to the press release:

By starting or speeding up cleanup at Superfund sites, the [stimulus] funding is also increasing the speed with which these sites are returned to productive use. When a Superfund site is redeveloped, it can offer significant economic benefits to local communities, including future job creation.

Unfortunately, for fewer than 100 residents living in the city of Treece, the stimulus funding for this project is literally going down a sinking hole. The city of Treece, KS, sits on the Kansas-Oklahoma border. This small, rural community was once a world leader in lead and zinc mining, mining that lasted for nearly 100 years. As the mining companies shut down in the 1970s, the groundwater began to rise and the pillars that supported the soil above the mine shafts began to collapse and you had a giant sinkhole. Shortly thereafter--in 1983, to be exact--the EPA placed over 500 square miles in southeast Kansas, northeast Oklahoma, and southwest Missouri on the National Priorities List of the Superfund list, including the city of Treece. In total, Cherokee County, KS, where Treece is located, has 115 square miles in the Superfund Program.

Last summer, during a listening tour of this part of Kansas, I saw firsthand how 100 men and women and children are living in absolute blight. They live day by day not knowing when--and I mean when, not if--their homes will collapse into the earth below into a giant sinkhole. They remain there despite the loss of businesses and infrastructure because their homes have no market value and they cannot sell them to fund a new home or even rent one.

As parts of Cherokee County have been on the Superfund list for the last 26 years, the EPA has removed and replaced contaminated topsoil. According to their stimulus press release, the EPA will continue to remove lead-contaminated residential soil at more than 380 acres in Baxter Springs and Treece. That probably sounds like an admirable thing to do, but as the ground below it caves in, the exposed soil that has not been cleaned up will rise, so essentially this is a never-ending process. You are cleaning up topsoil on a single home, and after the sinkhole sinks, obviously the topsoil is going to be contaminated with the contaminated soil underneath the new topsoil. If you get all that, I think you got the problem. This is a never-ending process.

I have worked very long and hard with other members of the Kansas delegation to determine how best to address this situation. The only satisfactory answer anyone has been able to give me is to relocate the town to protect the residents from a complete cave-in. The Federal Government needs to buy out the land from the remaining homes and business owners and then prohibit any future construction on the property affected by the contamination. This is exactly what we did with Pitcher, OK, on the other side of the State line, just a few years ago. Most estimates indicate we could relocate the entire town with $3 million in Federal funding and $500,000 in State funding--funding the State of Kansas has already set aside. During the previous Congress, I introduced legislation to address the Federal portion of this funding.

Fast forward to today, with an economy experiencing a lot of turbulence and a so-called stimulus bill that everyone in this body heard was an absolute necessity and not only a job maintainer but a job creator. So I asked the EPA to use $3 million of already allocated stimulus funding to relocate the community--$3 million. I was told no.

Instead of solving this problem and relocating the families of Treece to a safe facility, the EPA, with the assistance of the stimulus package, continues to spend even more money, $25 million--eight times the amount needed to relocate the community, the 100 people who live in blight and fear that their homes will sink into a sinkhole--to put new soil--this is what they are currently going to do--onto contaminated soil, which is then going to collapse and recontaminate all the soil. This doesn't make sense.

I have had an ongoing dialog with EPA, and they have told me:

The wastes are causing great environmental harm to southeast Kansas--

We, of course, knew that--as evidenced by the documented impacts to birds, fish, mussels, macro-invertebrates, and horses. There is also evidence of harm to humans as it is related to elevated blood lead levels.

The letter went on to say:

EPA Region 7 believes the situation at the adjacent Region 6 Tar Creek Superfund site in Oklahoma materially differs from the Cherokee County Superfund site, and that is what drives different decisions for the Tar Creek Site.

I am going to refer to a couple of charts here.

This is a picture of Treece, KS, located right here. You can see all of these white objects here. Basically, that is the chat material that has come out of many mines over 100 years.

Here is Treece, KS, and here is Pitcher, OK. Here is a giant chat pile in between. I have been there. You see many little ponds and winding roads, and I advise you not to go fishing in any of those ponds. You might catch a three-eyed fish. At any rate, it is all contaminated, all a sinkhole, whether it is from Treece, KS, in Region 7 with the EPA or whether it is Pitcher, OK, in Region 6 in Dallas. I don't know what the difference is. If this is contaminated, and it is, and this is contaminated and looks the same, and it is, what the heck is the difference?

Let me show another angle so you can appreciate what I am talking about. This is what the people of Treece see every day as the Sun rises and sets. This is a giant chat mountain--all of this contaminated soil. This side of the chat mountain is Treece, the other side is Oklahoma--the same situation, same problem, same contaminated soil, same sinkhole, and the same thing on the other side, except EPA 7 in Kansas City can't get it through their heads that this is identical to the same problem over here.

Instead of spending $25 million to clean up and put topsoil on contaminated soil that will sink, why can't we spend $3 million to save the community of Treece and relocate these people? Basically, EPA Region 7 does not have a factual basis, according to them, ``that would allow the use of regular or [stimulus] funds for a residential buy-out at the Treece subsite.'' Why? We were going to spend money for a road to be built twice. We are spending $25 million to put topsoil on a sinkhole. Why can't we put $3 million to relocate this town?

Here is my question. EPA acknowledged there is evidence of harm to humans. They listed a whole series of other animals and wildlife, and so on and so forth, that they are worried about. I understand that. But why not provide assistance to relocate fewer than 100 people from harm's way?

Furthermore, EPA told me that ``a 10-year timeframe is estimated for complete waste remediation.'' Due to the continual mine collapses, I wonder if the environmental cleanup will ever be completed.

I think it is in the best interests of all taxpayers to quit throwing money down sinkholes and provide an opportunity for 100 folks who have no other
options to move, as their homes are worth nothing. We do not need to spend, again, $25 million on a problem that will not be solved--topsoil on top of the sinkhole. We need to take care of these people and spend $3 million to let them get on with their lives. While American taxpayers are spending untold millions to prevent mortgage collapses, I can see no better use for the stimulus plan than to get the residents of Treece into safe homes.

I said once before, I am an honorary sheriff of Dodge City. I have a badge. You can go to Dodge City and you can meet the marshal, you can see Miss Kitty. You can go down to the Long Branch. We are used to taking care of problems ourselves. Kansas has appropriated $500,000 to do this. All we are asking for is $3 million, not the $25 million that I don't think is going to ever really result in any long-term cleanup.

You have to be there to realize just how bad this is, the pools of water and all. People will tell you: Senator, we are going to take you around this way. Don't walk this way.

So I would just ask Sheriff Joe, who is the self-declared sheriff on stimulus money, help me out here. Ride sidesaddle or you can drive the stage. Help me get $3 million. You have already stopped the ridiculous situation of building the road twice after we had destroyed it with stimulus money. That is the good news. But the rest of the story is that the citizens of Treece need to be relocated. We can do this for $3 million.

This remains an awful way to treat any community. I think it is not a wise use of taxpayer money. It does not pass the Kansas commonsense smell test.

I yield the floor.

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