In the memo to a public employee environmental watchdog group, known as “Peer,” the EPA states its land use rules are designed to “ensure protection of human health but also to ensure the integrity of remedies in the long term.”
“They are not as protective as they could be. They are certainly not as protective as just removing the soil,” said Jeff Ruch with the watchdog group Peer.
Ruch said the restrictions the EPA could impose like covering the site may only work in the short term.
“There’s no assurance that 10, 15 years from now, when the site has supposedly been declared clean that it will remain clean,” he said.