Superfund Sellout

Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund site for sale

Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund site Courtesy: anythingradioactive.com Inset image: Google Earth

(AKRON, Ohio) - Why is the Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund site for sale, when there has never been a cleanup of the hundreds of thousands of tons of toxins, only the continued flushing into our groundwater?

Residents aren't getting straight answers. They are only being told that a buyer would receive liability protections through a "covenant not to sue." Would this mean the new owner couldn't be sued if people got sick, or just that they couldn't be held liable for cleanup costs?

Are the Lake Township trustees still considering buying the dump? Don't the taxpayers have the right to know if in fact this is still being planned before the public could be saddled with this toxic nightmare? Or, as seen elsewhere around the country, is a deep-pockets brownfields developer going to take over the IEL?

Horror stories have been reported by other communities regarding unsuspecting workers and residents becoming ill after these sites, not properly cleaned up beforehand, are snatched up cheaply and redeveloped.

We weren't surprised to hear smug talk that the EPA will be lenient with the new owner of the dump. The EPA has blown it big time at Uniontown IEL, after dropping the ball regarding the plutonium probe following the 2001 federal court testimony by former landfill owner Charles Kittinger, who said large containers of this radiation were buried by the Army.

The EPA lied to this community after promising to treat the site as a worst-case scenario and provide a cleanup that would isolate the waste. Instead, the EPA bowed to the wishes of the polluters to save them from a big-bucks cleanup. Now it appears the EPA is willing to sell this town out forever.

Please see our Web site for more information on the IEL history: cclt.starksummit.org.

Chris Borello
President, Concerned Citizens of Lake Township/Uniontown IEL Superfund Site

Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill Superfund site