C.C.A.T.
|
Colorado Citizens Against ToxicWaste
|
|
Canon City Daily Record - October 10, 2002
Soil never tested at McKinley School
By B.J. Plasket
Daily Record News Group
DENVER - A recently discovered series of letters written 10 years ago indicate state health officials failed to conduct soil tests at McKinley Elementary School in Lincoln Park despite private 1992 tests indicating the school playground contained unsafe levels of uranium, lead and molybdenum.
The Canon City superintendent of schools will now ask for those tests.
Phil Stoffey, who has overseen the cleanup of the Lincoln Park Superfund site for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment since 1988, said he walked around the school with a gamma detection device after receiving the reports but did not test for the metals.
"I'm unaware of any other tests," Stoffey said, adding that the Geiger-counter-type test was part of a program in which all the intersections in the Superfund area were tested.
Stoffey said the device, which indicated uranium levels within the safe range at the school, could not have measured alpha or beta radiation, lead or molybdenum. He said he "doesn't remember any letters" informing the department of the private soil tests that showed high levels of contaminants.
A copy of that letter, however, shows it was sent to Stoffey - as well as health department officials Fred Dowsett and Robert Quillin - on Aug. 17, 1992. Quillin has since retired and Dowsett, who works in the department's hazardous materials division, said he doesn't remember the letter.
"I really did not have a whole lot of involvement with Cotter," Dowsett said. "If I got the letter, I probably would have referred it back to Phil (Stoffey)."
Canon City School Superintendent Frank Cooper said he remembers receiving a later letter he now assumes came from the health department which gave the school grounds a clean bill of health, but he still wants to know if the health department's letter was accurate. Cooper said he is now looking for a copy of the letter.
"We looked at the letter to make sure there was nothing for us to be alarmed about," he said, adding that he didn't know the health department did not conduct soil tests for the metals.
The initial tests on the school grounds, conducted by Glenn Miller Consulting in Elizabeth and analyzed by Hazen Laboratories in Golden in 1992, indicated uranium levels four times the amount of naturally-occurring radiation and indicated molybdenum levels 21 times the natural level. The same test indicated lead levels 3.75 times the natural background. The tests showed a uranium level of four parts per million, molybdenum at 41 ppm and lead at 75 ppm.
Miller was contracted to perform the tests by a Colorado Springs law firm that at the time was representing several Lincoln Park residents in a lawsuit against Cotter. According to a letter sent by attorney Rebecca Lorenz to the school district on Aug. 20, 1992, the superintendent agreed to the tests after requests from parents at the school. Lorenz has confirmed she wrote the letter.
Three days before that letter was sent, Lorenz sent a similar letter to the health department. She also sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA responded that it referred the matter "to our counterparts" at the state health department.
Cooper said school officials assumed the site was safe after receiving the health department letter, but now wants to know more.
"I want to make sure the message we received is correct," he said. "I haven't yet spoken to the school board but, speaking for myself, I want to find out. I know we were told we were within the safe range at the time."
Cooper said he plans to contact state health officials regarding possible new testing of the school grounds. The department last week announced it will soon conduct tests for plutonium and other contaminants at about 20 locations in the Lincoln Park area.
______________________
Cotter impact on economy not as strong today
But job losses still trickle down
By Eric Frankowski
Daily Record News Group
CAŅON CITY - Leaning back in a chair in his office in a historic building on Caņon City's main thoroughfare, George Turner ponders just why it is so important for a mill that provides only a fraction of the jobs in the local labor force to stay open.
As the executive director of the Caņon City Chamber of Commerce, there are certainly more important industries holding together the economic backbone of Fremont County for him to worry about.
As a whole, mining and milling activities have contributed no more than 2 percent of Fremont County's enitire labor force for the last decade, according to data from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. In 2001, that had fallen to 1.2 percent, with nine mining-related operations, including Cotter, contributing just 170 jobs out of a total workforce of 13,694.
In comparison, the 12 state and federal prisons in and around Caņon City employ more than 3,000. And the city's tourism-related business - hotels, restaurants and attractions such as the Royal Gorge - bring another 1,400 jobs to the area.
Construction, retail, manufacturing, health care and social work, hotel and other government jobs all had at least five times as many employees as the mining industry, and even financial services, transportation, and arts and entertainment contributed more jobs to Fremont County.
Still, said Turner, who was Caņon City's mayor during the time contamination from the mill left Lincoln Park with a Superfund designation, Cotter jobs are coveted because they pay well, $9 to $10 an hour for entry-level employees.
"There's 100 jobs out there at the mill; 100 good jobs," said Turner. "I think it would be a crime if we lose them."
In its heyday, the Cotter Corp. was an economic force, creating jobs and generating tax revenue for the area. During its early operations in the 1960s, a hundred jobs in a town that had only several thousand residents were difficult to ignore.
Even in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after contamination from the mill was discovered in the wells and soils of nearby homes, the mill employed close to 250.
But that was long ago.
According to county tax records, Cotter was assessed $234,289 in property taxes for 2001, just 1.5 percent of the $15.3 million in property taxes levied and collected in Fremont County last year.
Shut down for more than a decade as a result of a depleted uranium market and environmental problems, the mill employed a skeleton crew of only several dozen until operations resumed in 1998. Since then, the mill's labor force climbed steadily above 100. Then Cotter management was forced to begin laying off workers again in May.
Three rounds of cutbacks since then have left the mill with only about 50 full-time employees.
For a region where, according to 2000 Census data, almost 25 percent of the population aged 25 and older doesn't have a high school diploma, and where less than 12 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher, the losses hurt because Cotter's jobs are relatively high-paying, said Turner.
The average weekly wage for the mining industry in general was $578, higher than most of the state Department of Labor's other employment categories. In fact, only government employees and manufacturing workers had higher average monthly wages on a statewide basis.
Mining workers earned 56 percent more than retail employees, 74 percent more than agricultural workers, 7 percent more than financial service providers, and nearly double what real estate and rental service providers made in 2001, according to data compiled by the state.
While the loss of jobs might seem insignificant given the mining industry's place in Fremont County's economic pecking order, Turner said effects trickle down.
"If we lose those people, we have to assume there's 100 homes where 100 mortgages aren't being paid, 100 people who aren't buying clothes and food and who aren't paying for things like electricity and gas," he said. "And that's going to be felt."
Turner said he gets frustrated by all the controversy surrounding the mill's proposal to dispose of mildly radioative Superfund waste in its tailings impoundments, especially when the state health department has all but signed off on the plan.
"We have to trust that the government agencies have our best interests at heart," he said. "If you can't trust the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, who can you trust? The Maywood soil fell under (the mill's) license. They don't have to notify us every time they haul in a load of ore.
"There are things that shouldn't be open to public debate. . This stuff is so technical that the public will never be able to make an informed decision."
In the end, he said, the balance between minimal risk from the mill and the Cotter's economic benefit to the community, small as it may, needs to tip in favor of workers, jobs and prosperity.
next story
contact
us
contact
webmaster