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Kenton, Ohio - Taylor Creek Restoration

Date Completed: July 30, 2010
Category: general
Location: Taylor Creek, OH

Allied Environmental Services, Inc. Assists
with Stream Restoration

Durez Paying to Clean-up Taylor Creek After 2009 Fish Kill
BY DAN ROBINSON
Kenton Times - 7/30/2010

Durez Plant Manager Bill Bazell stands on one of two dams on Taylor Creek, where his company is investing more than $1 million in cleaning up the bed of the stream. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency believes Durez was responsible for a fish kill in Taylor Creek in June of last year. Bazell said his company doubts it was the source of the kill, but is committed to cleaning up the stream.

Over the past two weeks, some residents in the Taylor Creek area of County Road 155 have been concerned with visitors to their neighborhood. Men in white "moon suits" have been seen working at the creek, building dams and operating heavy equipment in the creek bed, leading to speculation there was a major chemical spill at a nearby factory.

But Durez Kenton Plant Manager Bill Bazell said the community was never in any danger. His plant is working with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on improvements to Taylor Creek following a fish kill last year. The white "moon suits" are just a precautionary step taken in the early stage of the process.

The project is a response to a fish kill in June of 2009, continued Bazell. At that time, about 400-500 dead fish were washed downstream and into the Scioto River. The OEPA investigated the fish kill and determined Durez was responsible, but Bazell disagrees. "Right after the fish kill," said Tom Poffenbarger, of the OEPA's Division of Surface Water, "we observed in the stream a discoloration of the water and dead fish in Taylor Creek where Durez discharges into the stream. We took samples of the sediment and found elevated levels of 13 chemicals in the stream bed. These were all downstream from where Durez discharges. Upstream from that point, the chemicals were not detected."

As a result of the study, said Poffenbarger, Durez was asked by the OEPA to conduct additional studies and remediate the problem. Poffenbarger said he is not aware of any fish kill in Taylor Creek since the incident last summer. "Our plan is to eliminate pollution from the stream so there is less potential for a fish kill such as that," he said.

In response to the OEPA request, Durez continued to sample and test the sediment of Taylor Creek. "We did about 200 samplings at a very high cost," Bazell said. Of the 13 chemicals found, some were small amounts of contaminants which might be washed from a parking lot, he said. The OEPA identifies three major concerns; phenol, bichlorobenzine and trichlorobenzine. Durez regularly uses phenol, said Bazell, but he said the other two chemicals haven't been in the plant in any form he is aware of for at least the past 40 years. "They were never used here as raw material or anything," said Bazell. "I'm convinced those chemicals were contained in some raw materials used before 1971. Nobody uses those any more."

The chemicals discovered don't pose any threat to public health, said Bazell. "There were very low levels found in the sediment. The material we are excavating can be taken to a regular landfill and not a hazardous material waste site."

Durez agreed to clean up Taylor Creek, even though Bazell and his company don't believe they were responsible for the fish kill. "What I think happened," said Bazell, "is Taylor Creek backed up with debris, limbs and branches, and the dissolved oxygen level got very low. We believe the stagnant water and hot weather was responsible for the fish kill."

Durez is leading a petition drive to have the section of Taylor Creek put on the county's maintenance schedule to keep the water in the stream flowing. The company is also paying for the brush along the banks to be cleared, but its main expense has involved more than $1 million in testing and construction to improve 1,400 feet of Taylor Creek downstream from its discharge.

That is where the men in white "moon suits" come into the picture, said Bazell. They work for Allied Environmental Services, Inc, a company in Lima contracted through Durez to clean Taylor Creek. The suits are a precaution, said Matt Elkins, project geologist. Although the company went into the project with a good idea what it was facing, safety regulations require the crews to wear the suits until tests prove the environment to be safe, he said.

Water from a pumping system upstream from the bridge on County Road 155 flows back into Taylor Creek after it is diverted around two dams in the stream. Durez is paying an environmental services company to remove the creek bed and test it for contaminants. "We don't know for sure what the levels will be," Elkins said. "We sample the air as we go and the final test should be taken (today)."

The project began last week and is expected to take 40 days, but, said Bazell, the work is ahead of schedule. Two dams have been built in the creek. The first is located at the discharge point from the plant. Pumps move the water from upstream of the blockage, through large hoses to the second dam at the bridge on County Road 155.

Between the dams, the creek bed has been removed and is to be replaced with gravel. Trees are being replaced along the banks and Taylor Creek will look normal in a few weeks, said Bazell. The sediment was scraped from the bed of the creek down 28 inches to begin the excavating portion of the plans, he said. Samples were tested and if not at a level acceptable to the OEPA, the crews wen t another four inches down. "We continue that until the samples are clean," said Bazell. "In some places, we have gone down close to three feet. "The chemicals being detected so deep in the clay indicates they have been there for a long time, said Bazell. "That is further evidence this didn't just happen recently," he said. "This was put here decades ago."

Bazell said the project has come at a high price tag for his company, but Durez felt it was an important project."We are doing this because we believe it is the right thing to do," he said.



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