TOWN OF 2240 PERMANENTLY EVACUATED IN 1985
Is it our imagination, or did there use to be town by the name of Times Beach near St. Lous, MO. Yes but it was permanently evacuated in 1985 due to its toxicity.
In the early 1970s the city of Times Beach hired waste hauler Russell Bliss to oil the roads in the town. From 1972 to 1976, Bliss sprayed waste oil on the roads at a cost of six cents per gallon used. Bliss had also subcontracted for a subcontractor of Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company (NEPACCO), who operated a facility producing hexachlorophene in Verona, Missouri. Some parts of the facility had been used for the production of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and the waste clay and water contained levels of dioxin some 2,000 times higher than the dioxin content in Agent Orange. Bliss claimed he was unaware that the waste contained dioxin. Bliss had first used the technique of spraying waste oil to control dust in horse stables. When a March 1971 spraying resulted in the death of 62 horses, the owners of the stable suspected Bliss, who assured them it was just used engine oil.
Hazmat cleanup at Times Beach
But Bliss had mixed the NEPACCO waste with waste oil. The owners followed Bliss' activities, and after other stables experienced similar problems, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began investigating, and in late 1979 a NEPACCO employee confessed the company's practice of handling dioxin. The government sued NEPACCO in 1980.
The EPA visited Times Beach in mid-1982, and in November 1982 stories began to appear in the press about the discovery of dioxin in Times Beach. The final soil sample was taken December 3, 1982, and the test result showed dioxin levels some 300 times higher than the one part per billion generally considered to be safe.
On December 23, 1982, the EPA announced it had identified dangerous levels of dioxin in Times Beach's soil.
DID THE EPA OVERPAY FOR TIMES BEACH?
Panic spread through the town, with every illness, every miscarriage, and every death of an animal attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the dioxin. On February 23, 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the town's buyout for $32 million. Later, PCBs were also found in Times Beach soil. By 1985, the town was evacuated except for one elderly couple who refused to leave, and the site was quarantined. Residents were shunned in their new communities by people who feared the effects of exposure to dioxin were contagious. Many of the town's citizens sued Bliss, NEPACCO, and its various subcontractors. Although the ethics and legality of Bliss' practices has been questioned, Bliss was never implicated or convicted of any crime.
About 265,000 tons of contaminated soil and debris from Times Beach and 28 other sites in eastern Missouri was incinerated from March 1996 to June 1997 in an incinerator built and operated on the site by Syntex, the parent company of NEPACCO. The cleanup cost the government a total of $110 million, $10 million of which was reimbursed by Syntex. After the cleanup, the incinerator was dismantled and the site was turned over to the State of Missouri. The site of Times Beach now houses a wild bird sanctuary.
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