Saturday, April 2, 2005

Eagle Picher used lots of chemicals, ex-boss says

Former manager believes lead is a minor worry at the Escondida plant site

Dana L. Bowley El Defensor Chieftain Editor

An Escondida man who said he was the plant manager at Eagle Picher about 30 years ago is hoping environmental tests scheduled Monday at the plant site in Escondida will check for more than just lead from battery manufacturing.

"If they're just checking for lead, they're just scratching the surface," said Bob Dorr, who said he was manager of the Eagle Picher plant from about 1970 to the mid-'70s.

During that time, he said, the plant mainly manufactured automotive circuit boards and electronic assemblies. Later, after he left he said, the plant made nickel-cadmium batteries, including "quick-activate batteries for weather balloons."

"The plant didn't use lead then," he said. "We didn't make lead batteries."

And from his standpoint, he said, based on the other chemicals and solvents used in the plant while he was there, "lead is a minor problem."

The plant did etching of circuit boards and also did lead, copper, tin, silver and gold plating.

"We used lots of chemicals and solvents," Dorr, 75, said.

Among the chemicals in use while he was there that he could recall were sodium hydroxide, acetone and trichloroethylene (or TCE).

TCE, according to the state Environment Department, is a chemical that has shown up periodically in public and private wells in the Socorro area, and it is one that a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency team will be looking for when it conducts a real-time grid survey of the property Monday.

Dorr said he also thought they used a chemical containing cyanide, since they were doing gold-plating and the typical chemicals for that type of plating contained cyanide.

"They ought to be looking for other things than lead," he said. "If there's any lead, there's got to be a lot of other stuff."

In addition, he said, "Effluents from the plant ran into the lagoons, human and (manufacturing) wastes."

According to the EPA, there were two lined evaporation lagoons at the site, an unlined discharge pit and an unlined sewage lagoon. Most of the soil and dried remains from the two lined pits, about 225,000 pounds, were hauled away from the site in 1993, and they were declared a "clean closure" by the EPA.

There is no apparent record of any remediation activity on the discharge pit or sewage lagoon. There is some indication from the state Environment Department and from EPA records that there were questionable discharges in earlier years at the site, but no evidence they were considered dangerous or that any cleanup was ordered.

Dorr said he isn't sure what was cleaned up on the property and what wasn't, since the cleanup activities occurred long after he left.

But, he said, based on what he observed while at the plant, "I wouldn't willingly walk over there through that dust."

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