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SW: →Future of the Salem Harbor Station: add fly ash section
The Drummond Company (operator of la Loma mine) has been the subject of numerous lawsuits regarding the murders of 70 union miners and railroad workers, collectively.<ref> International Rights Advocates, [http://www.iradvocates.org/Drummond_Pls%20Opening%20Brief.pdf "Juan Aquas Romero, et al. v. Drummond Company Inc., et al."], Plaintiff's Opening Brief, December 11, 2007. </ref><ref name="flaumcd">[http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS192843+28-May-2009+PRN20090528 "Federal lawsuit alleges U.S. mining company Drummond paid millions to Colombian paramilitary terrorists who killed 67; including "execution" of union leaders",] "Reuters", May 28, 2009.</ref><ref name="cosccmsdc>[http://blog.al.com/businessnews/2009/03/the_children_of_three_coal.html "Children of slain Colombian coal miners sue Drummond Co. in Birmingham federal court",] "Birmingham News", March 20, 2009.</ref> The murdered Colombians were killed by the notorious paramilitary group, United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which had been hired by Drummond to act as security.<ref name="flaumcd"/> In addition to those killed, a lawsuit against Drummond describes "how hundreds of men, women, and children were terrorized in their homes, on their way to and from work… innocent people killed in or near their homes or kidnapped to never to return home, their spouses and children being beaten and tied up, and people being pulled off buses and summarily executed on the spot."<ref name="flaumcd"/>
==Fly Ash==
Between the 1950s and mid-1970s, fly ash from the Salem Harbor Station was dumped at an unpermitted site in Beverly, MA.<ref name="ashpit">Paul Leighton, [http://www.salemnews.com/local/x1150885537/Notorious-pit-transformed-into-miracle-park "Notorious pit transformed into ‘miracle’ park",] "Salem News", October 26, 2007.</ref><ref name="nonhaz">[http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/sandgrav.pdf "Summary of EPA coal combustion waste damage cases involving sand & gravel mines/pits/operations",] Environmental Protection Agency website, June 11, 2001, accessed June 23, 2010.</ref> The Vitale brothers of Beverly owned and operated the former thirty-three-foot-deep gravel and sand mine until 1980; the city's Conservation Commission took over the site after the brothers stopped paying property taxes on the land.<ref name="nonhaz"/> The primary waste disposed at the landfill was "saltwater-quenched fly ash" from the power station. In addition to fly ash, "leaking underground storage tanks containing petroleum products" have been found at the Vitale site.<ref name="nonhaz"/>
The Vitale site is located near the Beverly Airport and the Airport Brook.<ref name="ashpit"/><ref name="bbpp">National Grid, [http://www.nationalgridus.com/aboutus/a3-1_news2.asp?document=2921 "National Grid and community officials celebrate grand opening of Beverly’s Birch Plains Park",] press release, October 25, 2007.</ref> Airport Brook leads past the site, through wetlands, and into Wenham Lake, which is the source of drinking water for 80,000 people in Beverly, Salem, and parts of Wenham.<ref name="ashpit"/> Wenham Lake sits one-half mile from the Vitale site.<ref name="ashpit"/> Over time, Airport Brook changed its route, and began cutting across and eroding the landfill, carrying fly ash and other pollutants to the Wenham Lake.<ref name="ashpit"/> Testing of the area found the land and waters downstream from the Vitale site to be heavily polluted.
For years, residents and local environmentalists (including the Wenham Lake Watershed Association) pressured the station's owners to clean up the areas that had been contaminated by fly ash.<ref name="ashpit"/> In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a Comprehensive Site Assessment and Risk Characterization while determining remedial action for the site.<ref name="nonhaz"/> The EPA had this to say about fly ash pollution from the site:
:''"In 1973, fly ash at the site eroded into a nearby swamp and a stream that is a tributary to a surface drinking water supply [Wenham Lake]. The erosion created a damming effect and resulted in flooding of neighboring property. In 1988, surface water sampling of the stream revealed levels of iron and manganese significantly greater than upstream levels. Additionally, there were complaints of fugitive dust from the site from neighbors located 500 feet away. Air sampling on one occasion in 1988 revealed arsenic concentrations of 2 parts per billion. Finally, 1988 groundwater sampling found arsenic and selenium in excess of their primary MCLs [maximum contaminant level] and aluminum, iron, and manganese in excess of secondary MCLs."''<ref name="nonhaz"/>
In 2000, National Grid (which had bought New England Power Company, Salem Harbor's owners when fly ash was sent to Beverly) agreed to clean up the area, a project that would take seven years and cost five million dollars.<ref name="ashpit"/> Costs of the clean up were covered by National Grid.<ref name="ashpit"/> The restoration project involved:
*rerouting 1,200 feet of Airport Brook to a more historical path around the Vitale site;<ref name="ashpit"/><ref name="bbpp"/>
*removing fly ash from Wenham Lake and surrounding wetlands and returning it to the site;<ref name="ashpit"/>
*stabilizing the slopes landfill; compacting and covering the site with fabric, gravel, and loam; covering the area with grass;<ref name="ashpit"/>
*restoring 16 wetland acres with 52,000 plants plus "wildlife habitat features, such as basking logs and boulder piles";<ref name="ashpit"/><ref name="bbpp"/> and
*developing of a 50-year program to monitor arsenic levels.<ref name="remain"/>
This clean-up project did not remove all fly ash from Wenham Lake, which laid more than three feet deep in some parts along the lake's bottom.<ref name="remain"/> In November 2003, the amount of fly ash planned to be dredged from the lake was scaled back from 7,800 cubic yards to between 4,000 and 6,000 cubic yards at the request of the Salem and Beverly Water Supply Board.<ref name="remain"/> The Board was concerned that dredging might stir up the ash and cause arsenic from the ash to be released in to the water.<ref name="remain"/> Capping the ash along the lake's bottom was an alternative considered, but taken off the table because "it would only last ten years and the technology hasn't been tested."<ref name="remain"/> Seasonal fluctuations in the reservoir's height made it possible to remove about 70% of the fly ash at Wenham Lake at a time when low water levels exposed the contaminated area.<ref name="remain"/>
National Grid built soccer fields along with a building for storage and restrooms and a border of tress on top of the fly ash pit. The City of Beverly renamed the area Birch Plains Park, because it used to be a place covered with birch tress.<ref name="ashpit"/> At a ceremony on October 25, 2007, Beverly's Mayor William Scanlon congratulated the utility company for cleaning up a toxic mess the company had made decades before.<ref name="bbpp"/> Below the soccer fields lay 300,000 cubic yards of fly ash, an amount that could fill 21,400 tractor trailers.<ref name="ashpit"/>
==Future of the Salem Harbor Station==
