Quincy Gears Up For Toxic Waste Cleanup Tests Reveal Contamination Of Soil Around Farm Chemical Dealer’s Site

Tuesday was a big day for this town of 4,000.

It was Patty Martin’s final city council meeting as mayor, coming after she spoke-out against agriculture waste-control practices. And it also was the day the community heard results of tests for toxins in a groundwater plume which may be heading toward the town’s high school.

Martin said she probably lost the mayoral election this fall because of her stance against the fertilizer and pesticide companies which she believes are bringing toxins and industrial waste problems to the town. The issue has brought national attention to Quincy and Washington agriculture. Martin’s stand also pitted her against the city council members and alienated her from many in this farming community.

She’s not sorry to be leaving office.

“I feel good,” Martin said. “My time in office has been good for this community, though there are those who would lead the not-so-well informed to think otherwise.”

Now she’s free to pursue public health issues even more, she said.

One issue is cleaning up a site owned by Cenex Supply and Marketing, a farm equipment and chemical retailer. The land, less than a half-acre, was found contaminated with hazardous chemicals a few years ago, but new details have recently come to light.

Tests this summer showed that the fumigant Telone was dumped into the ground. The site is across the street from Quincy’s high school and junior high. It’s also adjacent to the railroad tracks that divide the town.

The spill likely happened before farmer-owned cooperative Cenex purchased the land in 1982, said Pete Mutschler, a compliance specialist who is leading the company’s cleanup effort. Before 1982, the land was owned by another farm chemical retailer, Western Farmers Cooperative.

Bob Ren, who worked for Western Farmers, remembers seeing the fumigant spilled.

“They never used to think anything of puncturing a 30-gallon drum of it and letting it run into the ground,” he said. Because of the toxicity of the fumigant, it was easier to let it drain into the ground than to try to plug an accidental puncture, he said.

Ren said what happened at that site wasn’t much different than what happened on properties all along the industrial strip that abuts the tracks.

The form of Telone sold in the early 1980s was used by potato farmers to combat parasites, is a carcinogen that causes liver cancer in laboratory mice and breast cancer in female rats. No reports on its affect on humans are available, state health experts said.

“It’s like virtually every other agricultural chemical,” said Jerry Eide of West Central Environmental Consultants, which Cenex hired to study the site. “It would be a poison in a concentrated form.”

Only recently has Eide come to understand the extent of the contamination at the site. With 17 test wells on and off the property, he’s trying to gauge how far the chemicals have spread and if they’re a threat to the city’s drinking water.

One test well showed one Telone component - 1,2 dichloropropane - at 18,000 parts per billion. Amounts over 5 parts-per-billion are considered unsafe, said state public health assessor Paul Marchant.

The nearest city well, less than half a mile away and 415 feet deep, seems removed from the contaminated groundwater. Even so, Marchant said he’s trying to work out an agreement with the city to test the well several times next year.

The consultant group doesn’t know how far the contaminated groundwater reaches and will test near the high school property where the plume appears to be headed.

Tom McCamant, also with the environmental consultant hired by Cenex, thinks the plume is moving at 80 to 90 feet a year, “though it may be moving faster than that in a couple of layers,” he said.

He said he has no idea how long it would take for the toxin to dissipate.

Eide doesn’t think his finding toxins at the site is that unusual.

“If you gave me six months in Quincy with unlimited access, I could find 500 toxic waste sites,” he said. “And Quincy is no different than any other town.”

When this round of tests is completed, an extensive cleanup effort could begin as soon as next summer.

, DataTimes