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For Immediate Release September 22, 2005
Maine Board of Environmental Protection to review Dragon Cement permitting today
Augusta. The Maine Board of Environmental Protection will get a briefing today on the progress or lack there of, that state pollution officials are making with Dragon Cement Products's water pollution license. The meeting will be at 1pm September 22nd in Augusta at the Holiday Inn /Ground Round on Civic Center Drive adjacent to the Augusta Civic Center. 1:00 pm.
The company has operated without a license for at least ten years. Decades of runoff from the company's mammoth cement kiln dust pile has resulted in significant groundwater pollution, but neither the company nor Maine DEP has any plan for dealing with it. Tests show the company's wastes exceed legal limits for aluminum, arsenic chromium, zinc and lead.
The company has belatedly responded to the group's litigation by finally capping their dust pile in September.
"Now that Dragon is potty trained," said NSD president Ron Huber, "its time for them to clean up the mess they have made of the area's groundwater and surface water. But Maine DEP won't make them do it. We are hoping that the Maine Board of Environmental Protection will.
See Dragon test well data Click Here.
DEP official Paula Clarke, of the Solid Waste Management division will brief the Board on on the status of Dragon's waste licenses DEP geologist Richard Heath, who has analyzed the results of the last five years of samples from test wells on the site will also be there, along with DEP permit reviewer Carla Hopkins.
Following the briefing, the BEP will decide whether to ask the company and the citizens' group to provide additional information to help the board make its final decision on taking over the licensing.
Background
The decision by the BEP to get a briefing on Dragon's pollution licenses comes in reaction to a request by citizens' group Neighbors for a Safe Dragon asking the Maine Board of Environmental Protection to take over the permitting process.
In their letter, the group notes that for the last 15 years Dragon Cement has discharged wastes into the Thomaston environment with no state or federal license to do so. They also noted that test wells and surface water testing at the site confirm that runoff from the company's cement kiln dust pile has significantly impacted ground and surface water. Moreover, DEP noted that "water quality at the Site continues to degrade."
In 1991, Dragon applied to the DEP for after-the-fact special licenses for its waste piles. But finding that the company could not possibly comply with state pollution laws, Maine DEP opted to simply take no action, neither approving nor denying the company's application. Instead, in 1995 the agency drafted a so-called "Schedule of Compliance" for Dragon, allegedly to come up with a timeline for the company to achieve compliance with state law. This document was finally approved by the DEP this year. Yet according to NSD, even that document may be unworkable, as the company has no permit issued to it to comply with.
"We're just fed up" said Ron Huber, president of Neighbors for a Safe Dragon. "While the DEP twiddles its thumbs, a toxic plume of runoff from Dragon's CKD pile continues to spread through the area's aquifers. DEP won't put its foot down; maybe the Board of Environmental Protection will make them enforce state law."
The group is also asking the Board to require Dragon to fund an independent study mapping the past and present dispersal of its wastes into the area's air, land, groundwater and surface waters, and to develop and implement a plan for remediation of their pollution impacts.
In the past, the Board of Environmental Protection has "assumed jurisdiction" over Maine DEP permitting and licensing processes regarding runoff and noise issues from expansion of the Knox County Regional Airport, as well as over the amount of waste that salmon farms can discharge into state waters from their marine feedlot operations.
Maine DEP's Paula Clarke will appear before the Board of Envionmental Protection at 1pm September 22nd in Augusta at the Holiday Inn /Ground Round on Civic Center Drive adjacent to the Augusta Civic Center. 1:00 pm.
About Dragon Cement's pollution problems: Click Here
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