Home > Newsletter Home > TOC > Article

Sierra Club Recommendation on Dupont DeLisle Proposal
click for print view

12, 2004

Letter sent from Sierra Club to the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the 24-acre wetlands fill being proposed by DuPont DeLisle near the Bay of St. Louis.

District Engineer
U. S. Army Engineer District, Mobile
POB 2288
Mobile, AL 36628-0001
Attn: Regulatory Branch

Re: Public Notice No. MS03-03899-L

Dear Sir,

Sierra Club recommends that the Corps of Engineers extend the comment period and hold a public hearing on the permit application by DuPont DeLisle to fill in 24 acres of wetlands for the following reasons:

• This site is very close to the Bay of St. Louis, and would be the landfill closest to the water if this proposal were approved. With storm surges of 12 feet or more accompanying hurricanes, the resulting contamination from major storm events is a huge concern.
  
• There is no worse place to put a toxic waste landfill than in a wetland. Under the Section 404(b)(1) guidelines of the Clean Water Act, wetlands should not be destroyed if an alternative exists. The applicant must prove that there are no alternatives which would minimize or avoid the need to destroy the wetlands. In this case there are numerous alternatives, which include upland disposal either on-site or off-site, waste minimization and reduction, and modification of the manufacturing process to eliminate the need for landfilling large amounts of waste.
  
• This project does not meet the “no net loss of wetlands” goals of the government. According to a memorandum of agreement between the COE and EPA: “the Clean Water Act and the Guidelines set forth a goal of restoring and maintaining existing aquatic resources. The Corps will strive to avoid adverse impacts and offset unavoidable adverse impacts to existing aquatic resources, and for wetlands, will strive to achieve a goal of no overall net loss of values and functions. In focusing the goal on no overall net loss to wetlands only, EPA and Army have explicitly recognized the special significance of the nation’s wetlands resources.”
  
• Landfills do not require access to a wetland to do business. The permit should be denied because the project would violate the requirements in the 404(b)(1) guidelines of the Clean Water Act that the applicant must demonstrate that an alternative that would have a less damaging impact on the environment is not available.
  
• Cumulative impacts of ongoing landfilling, plus air and water pollution over the past 20 years, should be considered instead of evaluating this permit alone without considering the total impact of this facility on the environment. There are already large expanses of landfills on this plant site (see photo attachment). Note that the permit application has this proposal listed as Solid Waste Unit #24. Even if the pit is lined, wetlands are a particularly bad place to put large amounts of waste, especially toxic waste, because the high water table. EPA has said that all landfill liners eventually leak.
  
• We believe the size and impact of this project would necessitate an Environmental Impact Statement pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
  
• Impaired water body. The Bay of St. Louis is listed on the State of Mississippi’s 303(d) list of impaired water bodies. At one point it was listed as the most impaired body of water in the state. Because of its impairment, no regulatory actions should be taken which will increase pollution going into the bay. Leachate from the landfill containing toxics such as dioxin and heavy metals is a great concern. The Mississippi Dept. of Environmental Quality should deny water quality certification for this project.
  
• Dioxin and heavy metals bioaccumulate in the food chain. Contamination of seafood with dioxin and heavy metals is a major concern. Toxins can accumulate in seafood and make them unsafe to eat, especially for children and pregnant women. Under Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Coastal Program guidelines, the official state policy is that coastal wetlands should be preserved unless a high public interest is served. The need to preserve the health of the Coast’s fishery—and the health of people who eat seafood-- is far more significant than the benefits DuPont would receive from having a cheap place to dump toxins.
  
• When such a significant amount of wetlands is destroyed, the ability of the remaining wetlands to handle increased flow of polluted runoff is reduced, which results in poor water quality for the fish, and wildlife.
  
• The proposed mitigation is far inadequate. In no way does “enhancing” 80 acres of wetlands owned by DuPont compensate for filling in 24 acres of wetlands with toxic waste.

In the 2000 Toxic Release Inventory DuPont DeLisle Plant reported releasing about 42 percent of the dioxin-like compounds reported in the entire U.S. In 2001 DuPont still led the entire country in dioxin releases, and reported releasing a total of 14 million pounds of toxics including dangerous heavy metals (see www.epa.gov/tri/, zip 39571).

Currently there is an Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) investigation into the unusual incidence of deaths and illnesses around the DuPont DeLisle plant that many suspect are related to toxic pollution. ATSDR is specifically looking at the dioxin being landfilled at DuPont. For about 18 years DuPont did not report releasing the dioxin. It was only “discovered” in recent years, and DuPont has yet to explain to the public what actions are being taken to eliminate dioxin from the manufacturing process and what will be done to remediate existing contamination at the plant.

According to the ATSDR Petitioned Health Consultation on the DuPont DeLisle Plant, a toxic plume of contamination exists under the plant that it is expanding. Pollutants of the same type placed in the landfills have shown up in monitoring of nearby residential water wells. Construction of a new landfill even closer to the bays should not be allowed until these concerns about dioxin and heavy metal pollution, and their link to illnesses in the community, are thoroughly investigated and remediated.

We request that the Army Corps of Engineers notify us of any public hearings on this permit application. We also request a copy of the final decision of the COE regarding this matter.