Environmental Journeys: 2. The James River
After accepting a job as a biologist with EG&G Environmental Consultants in Waltham Massachusetts, our family moved into a ranch house in Westford Massachusetts. My son Kevin was a toddler and my daughter Heather would soon be born. We had never heard of Westford, but as we explored the towns close to Waltham — Lexington, Concord, and Carlisle — the reality of affordability took us northwest and outside the 495-corridor circling Boston. I knew I was living in a historic town when while sitting on my front steps my neighbor’s front door flew open and he charged out in his Minute Man outfit complete with a three corner hat. With musket in hand, he jumped in his car and drove off. I wondered if I should follow. Was someone coming to invade us? Of course, my neighbor was participating in one of the many Revolutionary War reenactments and must have been a little late to mobilize. Westford Minute Men had marched to Concord Bridge in April 1775 to face off with the British so this was a big deal for our town.
I joined the staff of EG&G and set up my new work home in a cubicle along with thirty other scientists in their cubicles. The core of the group was a set of brilliant physical oceanographers led by Bruce Magnell and Rich Scarlet, a Chemical Oceanographer — Gary Williams, and an environmental biologist — Curt Rose. Curt had hired me into EG&G to work on power plant issues. Our group manager was an ex-Coast Guard officer Chuck Mainville who became my mentor on this part of my environmental journey. Chuck would later guide me through some key decisions. I had been at EG&G for some months when Chuck asked me to manage a project on the James River. It was the first for me as a Project Manager. This responsibility meant overseeing all aspects: technical approach, staffing, execution, and the budget. But, I soon learned that my project was following on the heels of a bad environmental and health event, namely the release of Kepone into the James River.
Kepone was a super potent synthetic insecticide. Between 1966 and 1975, Life Sciences Products was contracted by Allied Chemical to produce Kepone in Hopewell Virginia at a small plant bordering the James River. Wastes were managed poorly and manufacturing wastes containing the chemical were dumped into pits and eventually reached the river. When an employee of the company exhibited uncontrollable neurological symptoms, the potential threat of the chemical surfaced and the plant was shut down. But fish were already contaminated with Kepone as were sediments within the river. Commercial and sport fishing were banned. My first job as a Project Manager was to evaluate the environmental safety of a new class of compounds — Specialty Oximes — that Allied Chemical wished to produce at its plant in Hopewell Virginia near where Life Sciences Products has been located. Kepone had raised environmental concern and awareness among the Virginia populace and the regulatory agencies. This would be a project under a microscope from many points of view.
There are many types of oximes. These chemicals are used within the pesticide, pharmaceutical, metal reclaiming, and energy industries. My job was to evaluate the toxicity of a “representative effluent” from Allied Chemical’s future specialty oximes facility, determine the efficacy of wastewater treatment of oximes in the waste stream, and aid in the permitting process for wastewater discharge. Under the Clean Water Act, such dischargers must be covered by and comply with a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Consulting services related to NPDES permits had grown into a substantial business in the 1970s.
First, we needed to create the “representative effluent”. We were provided with a recipe. Ingredients were shipped to our office. I and a colleague drove to EG&G’s Bionomics in Wareham Massachusetts where we would prepare the simulated effluent for toxicity testing. Upon arrival, we were directed to drive around the back to a loading area. There we found a small trap door, perhaps 3 feet high. I knocked, it slid open, and out hopped Bob Bentley. Bob was not a tall person. He sported a beard and had an air of joviality. The vision of him hopping out of that little door to welcome us brought to mind Santa’s workshop with its industrious non-tall in stature workforce . That workshop image was reinforced when I later met the laboratory manager Sam Petrocelli, also a relatively non-tall individual. We passed our ingredients through the opening to the extended hands of Bob and the Bionomics staff.
Sam Petrocelli proudly showed us the toxicology lab. Testing was underway with several freshwater aquatic species including the water fleas Daphnia and Ceriodaphnia, Fathead Minnows, and Rainbow Trout. Bionomics maintained stocks of these animals as well as plants. Myriad toxicity test chambers linee walls, filled shelves, and occupied dedicated spaces. Tests were underway in beakers and jars for static acute and chronic tests as well as in complex proportional diluters for flow-through tests. A legion of aquatic toxicologists diligently made and recorded observations and maintained the systems. Bionomics was engaged in one of the major efforts to develop the needed toxicity data for chemicals in the environment. I was amazed. The Bionomics lab is legendary for its toxicology research and the lab continues on as part of Springborn Smithers Laboratories. While the Wareham lab specialized in freshwater testing, Bionomics also had a marine testing lab in Gulf Breeze Florida. The head of that lab was Rod Parrish. Rod would eventually become the first Executive Director for the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). My eventual relationship with SETAC and with Rod later became an important part of my life.
That evening at the Bionomics Wareham facility, my colleague and I mixed the ingredients together in accordance with the recipe’s instructions. We worked in an area of the lab dedicated to mixing chemicals for toxicity testing. We used a lined mixing drum to blend the ingredients. It was a bit spooky and I felt a little like a mad scientist concocting a magic brew. Our mixology work done, we set up batches of the simulated effluent for toxicity testing to be initiated by Bionomics in the morning. With the benefit of experience, I now look back on this and recognize it is unlikely that we could know what would constitute a “representative effluent” and that the effluent from the Specialty Oximes facility would likely be variable in composition over time such that no single batch would represent it.
The second technical task was to evaluate wastewater treatment efficacy. We arranged for wastewater treatment studies to be conducted by a professor who was an expert on pilot wastewater treatment studies. The focus of his work was on the treatability of the oximes. The treatability study went well. I periodically monitored the professor’s progress and reviewed the results.
I visited the Hopewell facility to meet with Allied Chemical staff. Occupying 460 acres with an impressive array of pipes, valves, columns, and emission stacks, the plant a chemical engineer’s dream.
The sweet smell of caprolactam was pervasive. On some trips we met in Richmond with the law firm Hunton & Williams, counsel to Allied Chemical. At other times we met with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). My counterpart at Allied was Tom Barbee. We were both in our late 20s and this was the first major project for each of us. Together we were able to complete the technical work. The plant secured its NPDES permit for the discharge of effluent from the Specialty Oximes manufacturing operation. Oximes are still produced in Hopewell by a successor company.
Being given an opportunity to manage a project was a real gift. It was a lesson on the value of mentoring. Chuck had that role for me, and I am sure he kept an eye on me. I was always comfortable going to him with questions about the budget and dealing with the client. This was also my first time interacting directly with the client, legal counsel, and a regulatory agency. Looking back, I note that there were no public meetings, at least where I was included. That may have been a reflection of the times. Public meetings and citizen involvement would grow over time and would require additional communication skills. Risk and science communication to lay, regulatory, and technical audiences was a journey unto itself. I would learn the importance of tailoring the communication to the audience and that was a difficult challenge because it often meant leaving familiar language and a personal technical comfort zone.
But when I think of Hopewell and chemicals within the James River, it is Kepone that comes to mind. In 1989, Bob Huggett then with the College or William and Mary and Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) authored a retrospective. The abstract he writes as a case study in the National Academy of Sciences publication Contaminated Marine Sediments — Assessment and Remediation reads as follows and offers insight into what happened with Kepone clean-up decisions and with the fate of Kepone in the river:
The James River in Virginia was contaminated by the pesticide Kepone when the material entered the river as early as 1968 and continued until its discovery in 1975. The river became so contaminated that commercial fisheries were closed. In 1988, 13 years after closure, all fishing restrictions were lifted. The contaminated sediments have been diluted and covered enough by uncontaminated material that the Kepone flux back into the water column has diminished. Kepone concentrations in organisms inhabitating the river are finally below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration action levels. Biological, chemical, physical and geological aspects of the contamination indicate that remedial actions to remove Kepone would be expensive and environmentally unwise.
The decision to allow the river’s natural processes to remedy the Kepone contamination and reduce exposure levels is somewhat unique. There are current examples of relying on natural processes such as sedimentation as part of remedies in the Great Lakes. However, it is more often the case that sediment contamination triggers a regulatory process with a presumption of the eventual need for removal of contamination to low levels. It takes a combination of vision, an understanding of dynamic processes over time, innovation, trust, and courage to arrive at clean-up decisions that are more nuanced and that better balance all the factors that lead to holistic solutions protective of health and the environment.
VIMS continued to monitor for Kepone. In 2017, Michael Unger at VIMS reported that, Kepone in fish tissues has continued to decline exponentially since 1980 and should be near or below the detection limit in all samples by 2020 or 2025 if current trends continue. But the fact that 65% of fish still have reportable Kepone concentrations shows just how difficult it is to rid an ecosystem of a persistent toxic chemical.
Contaminated sediments in freshwater and marine sites would become a major part of my work and I always think of the James River and Kepone as an early experience. It started my thinking on risk assessment, risk management, and ways to remediate the contamination within large dynamic aquatic systems like the James River.
