(The Center Square) — A state environmental report noted pollution issues at the former Erie Coke plant on the edge of the lake, and locals want answers.
The report, released by the Department of Environmental Protection and investigated by OBG | Baker Environmental Solutions Joint Venture, warned of water, soil, and surface pollution at the nearly 100-year-old industrial site.
The plant, which had “a long history” of violating state and federal environmental laws, shut down abruptly in 2019, a week before Christmas. DEP then secured a $1 million fund from the Erie Coke Corporation for “the safe shutdown of the facility,” but the report noted that the money “only covered disposal of a portion of the wastewaters on site.”
OBG | Baker took hundreds of samples from the 186-acre site over a four-month period starting last September and found that “discharge waters from site operations were insufficiently processed prior to discharge into Lake Erie” and impacts on the shoreline are “likely a function of contaminant leaching from the decades of disposing of various process waste on and over the bluff above the shoreline.”
The report’s findings were “unsurprising to environmental advocates,” said Jenny Tompkins, the campaign manager for clean water advocacy at PennFuture.
“DEP did not give a lot of context” on the threat of that pollution, she noted, with the department anticipating they’ll need to monitor the site for another year and craft a work plan, with another report due out in the summer of 2024.
“We are cautioning people to be aware to the extent they can be,” Tompkins said.
PennFuture has joined with a number of locals to form Hold Erie Coke Accountable and called for more transparency from local and state leaders. The group wants more public engagement and for more environmental testing to check for off-site contamination.
“There’s so much left to be determined and we are calling on leaders to come together, transparently, to expeditiously figure out next steps and to inform the public,” Tompkins said.
The DEP report found that benzene was above acceptable levels in some of its groundwater samples and semi-volatile organic compounds found in soil, which was expected because SVOCs occur naturally in coal and are released when burned.
Not all SVOCs, chemicals, and metals found at the site rose to concerning levels for human health. But their presence can make amelioration more difficult — and costly.
What the site means for taxpayers isn’t yet clear. Previous estimates put the price tag at $7 million or more. Erie Coke is also under indictment for Clean Air Act violations, which may or may not produce some funds for cleanup.
Taxpayer liability could also change if Erie Coke becomes one of Pennsylvania’s dozens of federal Superfund sites or declared a state Brownfield site for redevelopment.
Federal designation can make more money available for clean-up and gets held to a higher standard of remediation — but takes longer. A state designation, Tompkins said, has a lower standard for clean-up because the goal is to move quicker on the site.
