CCAT: Cotter's reports deficient

Kristine Woolley
Record Staff Writer

Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste officials said Thursday the reports Cotter submitted to the health department in its quest to receive radioactive soil are deficient and inaccurate.

"My feeling is, again, they did not provide enough data," said Sharyn Cunningham, CCAT co-chairwoman.

"They didn't do any surveys in the area. Instead of really studying the issues, they claimed there was no data to use and that it was impossible to determine what the impacts are."

Last April, Cotter filed an application seeking approval to transport 470,000 tons of mildly contaminated waste soil from the Maywood Chemical Superfund site in New Jersey to the uranium mill's lined impoundment ponds.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment rejected the environmental assessment portion of the application last October, citing socio-economic and transportation inadequacies.

Specifically noted in the rejection was the lack of social sciences data assessing the potential influence on the community and tourists.

The health department also found there was insufficient evidence on transportation accident analysis.

Subsequently, Cotter hired Franklin Environmental Services Inc. and Greystone Environmental Consultants to compile transportation and socio-economic supplementals to the environmental assessment.

Cunningham said the data that is used in the socio-economic supplement, such as newspaper articles, includes 2001 but should have also included information from 2002.

Cunningham and fellow co-chair Jeri Fry also said it wasn't appropriate to include a Yucca Mountain repository study in the socio-economic supplement as a comparison to Cotter.

"There's no relevance. Yucca Mountain is 90 miles from where people live. Cotter was asked to a socio-economic study of what's going on here and they're saying there are no tools to do the study," Fry said.

"So, rather than do the work themselves, they are trying to ride on the shirttails of someone else's study."

Added Cunningham, "There are a number of sites across the country that are similar to Cotter that there have been studies done on," Cunningham said.

In addition, Cunningham said there are real estate studies available on the effect radioactive sites have on property values.

"This supplement is very slim, very deficient and didn't cover all the issues it could have," she said.

Added Fry, "I think the socio-economic part is incredibly deficient. There's no discussion on public occupational health risk, emergency preparedness or education of the community."

Fry also said she was "dismayed" to read in the socio-economic report that in 2001, 45 percent of the Fremont County population consisted of correctional facility inmates.

"That figure is laughably wrong and the local management of Cotter should have read the report before hoisting it on us as their best foot forward," Fry said.

According to data from area prisons, the number of inmates housed in Fremont County is about 8,000, roughly 17 percent of the population.

"(Cotter's) little attention to detail just reinforces some of the things CCAT has been concluding about how they do business," Fry said. There's a blatant disregard for what's going on down here."

In addition, Fry said she was surprised the report makes no mention of CCAT.

"There are quotes from the Fremont Economic Development Corporation and the chamber of commerce, and that's fine, but there is no reference to CCAT," she said.

Additionally, Fry said the nearly 5,000 people who signed a petition last year objecting to receipt of the soil are having to "look for errors" in Cotter's plans.

"The work they have done on this is just plain deficient and laughable in error," Fry said.

She added, "If this soil is so bad for Maywood that they don't want it, why would Fremont County want it?"

The transportation supplement also has faults, Fry and Cunningham said.

"The health department asked them to find alternatives to receiving the soil, which is what they should have been examining, but they interpreted that as finding alternatives for how it would be transported," Cunningham said.

In addition, the health department asked Cotter to investigate the area's railroad crossings and provide a cost estimate of what needs to be done, Cunningham said.

"Why didn't they provide a cost estimate in the report? They could have done one and then decided later who would pay for it," she said.

"It just shows the attitude Cotter has toward safety. If safety was their utmost concern, they wouldn't be quibbling over who would pay for the railroad crossings," she said.

According to Fry, transportation of the soil would adversely affect the community.

"Bringing in that quantity of anything would have an incredible infrastructure impact on the community — even if they were just bringing in bales of hay," Fry said.

"There are basic issues involving how the community would cope with that activity, even if it's not radioactive material."

She added that the receipt of radioactive material "will shape this community from now until forever.

"It's well-documented that there is a public perception that the risk exists, but that perception is being totally discounted by a few people who will never see the other side," she said.

Fry said CCAT encourages the public to attend the upcoming meetings on the transportation and socio-economic supplements.

The first public hearing will be held at 10 a.m. Feb. 21, at the VFW hall, 922 Sells Ave. A second public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. March 10.

"The opportunity to be heard on this matter is one of CCAT's successes and we will continue to make as much information available as possible," Fry said.

"Whatever your opinion is on Cotter becoming a radioactive dumpsite, you need to be there."

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