We’re not the only community to stare at a shuttered coke plant.
A look at others around the country finds troubles similar to those now facing the Tonawanda Coke site: toxic messes left behind, doubts about how much the plant owner will pay for cleanup and nervousness about where it ranks among cleanup priorities.
It took 17 years just to add a closed coke plant in West Virginia to the federal Superfund list.
It cost more than $75 million to clean up a site in Ohio – nearly 38 years after the EPA first investigated contamination there.
Demolishing a Kentucky coke plant sparked a fire that sent huge plumes of black smoke into the sky for days.
So what can be learned from cleanup efforts across the land?
The most common refrain from those involved in or who studied the cleanups is be prepared to wait.
“Don’t expect anything to happen in the next decade other than cleaning it up little by little,” said Shaun Crawford, an environmental health consultant.
Crawford once worked for the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and spent a career studying the effects of coke oven emissions on communities.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, even under the best circumstances, if that site is still there 20 years from now,” Crawford said.
When it comes to a cleanup plan, think big.
Anything short of a federal Superfund designation could be ineffective at the Tonawanda Coke site, said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator during the Obama administration who’s now a senior adviser at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation should formally make a request to the EPA to add the Tonawanda Coke’s site to the federal Superfund program, she said.
“There is a legacy of pollution at this site that needs to be fully remediated,” Enck said. “I am concerned about ineffective and limited ‘voluntary cleanup’ or Brownfield-type approaches.”
Enck said that although the federal Superfund program is “slow and can be clunky,” it allows for a comprehensive investigation into contamination and development of a solid cleanup plan.
“With a parcel this large, there should be no shortcuts, and the last thing you want is the site sitting there unaddressed for decades to come,” Enck said.
