'It was our job. We had to eat.'
Confusion exists over which agency oversees contaminated site.
Confusion exists over which agency oversees contaminated site.
By MICHAEL ANDERSON
manderson@thehawkeye.com
manderson@thehawkeye.com
Sitting at the kitchen table with his wife, Carole, Mervin Klees recalled showing up to work at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train shops outside West Burlington.
He and his coworkers would file into the massive locomotive repair building early in the morning, where the maintenance crew sometimes had re-fitted the pipes in the ceiling the night before. To get to the pipes, workers would have to cut through the asbestos insulation.
Klees remembers how particles of the stuff would float in the air, covering the floor and equipment in the shop with a soft white carpet.
"Like snow. You'd have to brush it off, like this," Klees said, waving his hand in front of his face.
Klees is one of several local and area railroad employees who has received a settlement check from BNSF in the last 10 years for alleged exposure to asbestos and other toxic chemicals at the shops.
Klees, 83, worked on and off at the shops as an electrician for 33 years, beginning in 1946, a time when the harmful effects of asbestos weren't widely known. He retired in 1993. Two years later, he was diagnosed with asbestosis, a chronic inflammatory lung condition contracted from long-term exposure to asbestos.
As a result of his illness, Klees received a nontaxable settlement from BNSF for $15,869.79 in December 2001.
Local historian Deb Olson received an undisclosed settlement from BNSF last month. She also received settlements from several asbestos companies. Her husband, Terry, worked at the shops for 35 years before retiring in 2008. He died six months later at the age of 60. Lung cancer.
"His lungs were filled with asbestos," Olson said.
The railroad granted the settlement after years of negotiation, though they maintained Terry Olson's smoking habits were just as likely the culprit of his lung cancer as asbestos.
Deb Olson remains unconvinced, and she sees the settlement as an admission: The asbestos at the BNSF train shops led to her husband's death.
"At certain times in that shop, cigarette smoke was the cleanest thing those workers breathed," she said.
Besides Klees and Olson, four former employees from Burlingtion have received settlements from the railroad since 2006, and there is at least one ongoing lawsuit in the range of $100,000.
According to court documents, Philip Buck claims his work as a laborer and electrician at the shops exposed him to a variety of organic and chemical solvents that led to lung cancer and permanent brain damage, resulting in memory loss and early dementia. His lawyers, who were unavailable for comment, list his resultant medical expenses at $20,000 and climbing, his lost wages at about $60,000.
Though the train shop has been closed since 2003, the very chemicals that got Klees, Buck, Terry Olson and at least a few more of their coworkers sick remain on the site, contaminating the soil, groundwater and a creek that flows into Grease Lake, which the railroad once used as a disposal site for sanitary waste.
Entered into the Iowa Department of Natural Resource's Hazardous Waste Sites Registry in 1990, BNSF continues to monitor the contamination at the empty shops property. Recent data indicates the contamination levels do not represent a significant public health risk.
"It's probably one of the most assessed and evaluated environmental contamination sites in the state of Iowa," said Matt Culp with the Iowa DNR.
A lake called Grease
The BNSF train shops have been a fixture in Burlington since the 1850s. There's a small lake called Grease to the north of the sprawling complex of buildings, the 8-acre locomotive repair facilities crouching at the southern edge of the 12-acre property. Empty now except for a minimal security presence after BNSF moved its operations in 2003 to Galesburg, Ill., and Topeka, Kan., the shops have fallen into disuse, the grounds a patchwork of weeds, overgrowth, piles of strewn gravel and a fanning stretch of old rail.
In the day-to-day repair and manufacture of locomotives, workers at the shops routinely handled hazardous industrial chemicals, many of which remain on the site.
A mixture of Lyxol, mineral spirits, paint thinner and chlorinated solvent blends found on site have been flagged by the DNR as hazardous based on their ignitability. Analysis of sediment samples reveals the lingering presence of lead, arsenic, diesel, silicates, PCB-1260, trichlorethylene, chloro-benzene and the aromatic hydrocarbon xylene.
Tetrachlorethylene, or PCE, is used widely in dry-cleaning processes and was used by BNSF as a degreasing solvent. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as a likely carcinogen to humans. Studies cited on the EPA's website indicate prolonged exposure to the compound can lead to skin irritation, heart arrhythmia, central nervous system damage and reproductive complications. Though the levels appear to be contained, high concentrations of PCE have been found at Grease Lake and the train shops, even in fractured bedrock at depths of 160 feet.
Though the shops are in Burlington, neighboring West Burlington's water supply is protected by the Maple Mill Shale formation, according to the DNR, and off-site groundwater contamination does not appear to be a problem. West Burlington now is attached to the Burlington water system for reasons unrelated to the shops.
BNSF used PCE as a degreasing solvent until it fell out of favor in the early 1980s.
Klees recalled how he and his coworkers would come into the shops on Mondays, sometimes finding large rats feasting on the scraps of sandwiches that had been left in empty grease buckets over the weekend. The railroad didn't do anything to get rid of the rats and large cockroaches that nested near the lunch benches, so it was left up to Klees and the other workers to dispose of them.
They would rev up the degreasing pit, which typically was used to clean engine blocks and other machine parts off the locomotives. Then they would lower the barrels of rats onto the tray, shut the lid and let the degreasing fumes creep in.
"Those rats would have about one whiff of that stuff, and they would be dead," Klees said. "I breathed that in every day."
Louis Becker was a pipe-fitter at the train shops from 1974 to 2004, taking a job at Galesburg when BNSF moved its operations there in 2003. His job mostly exposed him to asbestos insulation and asbestos gaskets off the locomotives, though he recalls working in the degreasing pit.
"You didn't stay down there very long," Becker said. "You'd get high as a kite."
Becker said even wearing respirators, workers tried to stay in the pit for no longer than five minutes at a time.
"My partner when he was down there one time, he got too much of it, and we had to haul him up, get him outside for some fresh air," Becker said. "It was bad stuff."
Becker also recalled using floor-cleaning solvents that would burn skin on contact. Workers used rubber gloves, Becker said, but institutional safety precautions for the cleaning products, asbestos and degreasing solvents weren't implemented until 1988, when BNSF hired a safety officer. Until that point, Becker, Klees and their coworkers were uneducated about the toxic nature of the substances they handled on a daily basis.
"We didn't know," Becker said. "We were overwhelmed when all this came out."
Complications of the heart
Deb Olson is a writer and research historian. Apart from working at the Des Moines County Historical Society, she holds down two other part-time jobs to pay the bills. Next year, she will be without health insurance, and will be unable to access her husband's pension for another three years.
Though it was one of her husband's last requests she sue the railroad, it was not an easy decision for her to make. Her husband died in January, and she didn't file the lawsuit until that summer.
"I was sitting at his desk trying to figure out what to do and how I was going to pay my bills," Olson said. "On top of the desk were still sitting the Christmas cards we had gotten in December before he died, and one of those Christmas cards fell off the top and landed in front of me. It was from the union lawyers, and it was like 'OK, I'll call them.' "
Olson said she continues to feel a sense of great loss. Though the settlement will make her finances more manageable, no amount of money can replace her husband, she said. She remains conflicted about her feelings toward the railroad.
"Throughout history, there have been jobs that put people at risk," Olson said, adding the railroad always has been an essential part of Burlington's economy. "Somebody has to do some of these jobs. Somebody has to work on the railroad."
Reflecting back, Olson sometimes entertains the idea her husband made a choice, that he knew what risk he was taking working at the train shops but did it anyway. Olson said her husband's job supported her family for 30 years. It put her children through school. It put her through school. She sometimes wonders if her husband's death was the price for all that. Since he died, she finds herself questioning things more and more.
"Did they really understand the total ramifications of all these chemicals?" Olson said. "Do you really want to believe that some of these companies have purposefully said, 'Well, we know there's radium in some of the stuff we're making, but we don't care'? That's just scary to think that the world is like that."
In the end, Olson finds it hard to place all the responsibility for her husband's death on the railroad's shoulders.
"I want someone to blame, and they're as good a person as any," Olson said. "But I struggle with that. Is that right? Is any of this simple? I kind of don't think it is."
"Terry Olson was a good man," Klees said, recalling him from his time at the shops. "He was a hard worker."
When asked why he continued to work at the train shops with the knowledge every day he was being exposed to toxic chemicals, Klees' reply was gruff and abbreviated.
"Why did we do it? Hell, it was our job. We had to eat," Klees said. "I had a wife and kids. You didn't think about any of that."
Who watches the watchmen?
In a statement issued by BNSF, spokeswoman Amy McBeth said the railroad has been working for several years with the EPA on the assessment and monitoring of the site's contamination.
But who exactly has jurisdiction over the BNSF train shops is a point of some confusion between the DNR and the EPA's Region 7 office in Kansas City, Kan., which oversees federally controlled contaminated sites in Iowa.
Though it appears the EPA does indeed have authority, both agencies suggest the other is more involved in managing the site.
The DNR lists the EPA as the lead agency at the train shops in Burlington under the header "Grease Lake," but the EPA said it has not had any involvement with the site since the 1980s.
"I have now checked with all the appropriate people and had them check with their record databases, and the EPA has not had an active involvement or presence at that site for nearly two decades," EPA public affairs specialist Chris Whitley said. "As far as why it may be listed on the Iowa DNR's website, they may or may not have some level of remaining oversight with it."
Officials in the DNR's contaminated sites section were confused upon receiving this information, maintaining their office definitely has not had any active presence at the site for a similar time period.
"(The EPA) are the people running the show," said Cal Lundberg, DNR contaminated sites section supervisor. "We are as involved as the EPA asks us to be."
Matt Culp of the DNR contaminated sites section agreed with Lundberg.
"I'm not certain as to why anyone at the EPA would tell you they haven't done anything with that site in a long time. That couldn't be further from the truth," said Culp, referencing a pump test report from the site the EPA recently forwarded to the DNR. While BNSF is responsible for conducting such tests, Culp said, the EPA is nonetheless involved in the site's ongoing review process.
"I'm just flabbergasted they would take that position," Culp said.
He repeated the EPA is the lead agency at the site, and referred The Hawk Eye to project manager Ruby Crysler, the DNR contaminated site section's contact with the Region 7 EPA office. Crysler declined comment, deferring to Whitley, who said he'd spoken with Crysler about the matter.
Whitley said the only level of involvement Crysler might have is in receiving progress reports from BNSF, which she would review then place in storage. The DNR's website maintains an extensive database of documents the EPA has signed off on, some of which are dated this year. Those documents, which include correspondence between the EPA and BNSF, were forwarded to the DNR by the EPA Region 7 office.
"Any records that are going to exist for that site are probably off in a cave somewhere, or in archive storage," Whitley said, adding it would take a long time to even access those records. "We're pretty much an empty well as far as information."
He said since the 1980s, the EPA has regarded the BNSF train shops as a closed site.
"If it is a closed site, EPA's involvement and action with it is done for the present time," Whitley said.
Whitley elaborated, saying BNSF may indeed have a continuing obligation to the EPA to monitor the site, and the EPA still can be considered the lead agency even if the site is closed.
While there may be confusion over the level of involvement certain governmental regulatory agencies may or may not have at the train shops, nonesuch exists between BNSF and AECOM, a private firm the railroad has hired to monitor the site.
AECOM gathers field data and submits its findings from its 36 monitoring wells in the form of reports to BNSF, which in turn submits the reports to the EPA's Region 7 office. If upon review it is found the reports contain nothing out of the ordinary, the EPA files them away, according to Whitley.
"As far as what the EPA has done to change things at that property or to implement any kind of remedy or require work plans, I don't want to call it ancient history, but it goes back quite a way," he said.
AECOM provides up-to-date reports of its monitoring efforts that are viewable at the DNR's website. Their data continually indicates the contamination at the train shops does not represent a significant public health risk. AECOM Senior Project Manager Kurt Geiser declined comment.
Whitley and Culp at least agree it is a common practice for private firms to oversee the monitoring of contaminated sites across the country. The EPA does not have the resources to monitor the sites itself, Whitley said.
"The burden of managing an issue, whether it's a cleanup or a remedy, ultimately falls on the polluter," Whitley said.
"The bottom line is we know, based on database searches here, no one at EPA Region 7, for the past 20-plus years, has been involved with the site."
The train shops site is governed by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, which in Iowa, puts the train shops under the EPA's umbrella of influence. Culp with the DNR insists Crysler at the Region 7 office is the train shop's project manager and has had extensive contact with Geiser of AECOM. Whitley characterized Crysler's involvement differently.
"She is not involved in actually working at the site. She's someone who manages boxes and files," Whitley said.
Both Crysler and Geiser declined comment and did not return The Hawk Eye's calls.
Closing shops
Despite the settlements it has granted in the last 10 years, BNSF maintains it is not responsible for the illness of any of the workers in Burlington.
"Based on the analysis of the available medical and scientific literature, we believe that it is unlikely that the work at the West Burlington Shops was causally related to the development of any kind of of disease in these workers," BNSF director of public affairs Amy McBeth said in a statement. "However, due to the costs and uncertainties of litigation, settlements are sometimes effectuated in these situations."
Klees claims an X-ray scan of his chest taken in 1995 shows asbestos particles in his lung tissue. Becker, who did not pursue litigation, also has asbestosis, and said he has X-rays to prove it.
McBeth said BNSF, via AECOM, has been working with the EPA on the continued assessment of the site and is awaiting review before plans for remediation can move forward.
While BNSF does not have any plans for the site, McBeth said the railroad is open to other uses for the property that do not conflict with the ongoing monitoring of contaminants.
Mel Pins, the DNR's Brownfield Redevelopment Program coordinator, said though the site is contaminated, it does not necessarily qualify as a brownfield, and even if it did, remedying it likely would be beyond the scope of his budget. The DNR typically invests only $10,000 to $20,000 in any one brownfield property, Pins said. The train shops site likely would require more than that.
"The kind of response actions, or monitoring, or even what's been done to date there would be pretty big compared to the kind of funds I have," Pins said.
The brownfield program is voluntary, and mostly in place to help municipalities put smaller plots of land back into reuse. Most of the time the properties in question require little maintenance, and are only perceived to be contaminated when in fact they are not.
In the case of the Burlington train shops, that perception is an ongoing reality, and the chances of putting them back into use any time soon are slim.
"I don't know too many people that would want to transfer ownership or receive ownership of a RCRA site that's under corrective action, unless there were a whole lot of caveats that the seller will continue to take care of the problem," Pins said.
He and his coworkers would file into the massive locomotive repair building early in the morning, where the maintenance crew sometimes had re-fitted the pipes in the ceiling the night before. To get to the pipes, workers would have to cut through the asbestos insulation.
Klees remembers how particles of the stuff would float in the air, covering the floor and equipment in the shop with a soft white carpet.
"Like snow. You'd have to brush it off, like this," Klees said, waving his hand in front of his face.
Klees is one of several local and area railroad employees who has received a settlement check from BNSF in the last 10 years for alleged exposure to asbestos and other toxic chemicals at the shops.
Klees, 83, worked on and off at the shops as an electrician for 33 years, beginning in 1946, a time when the harmful effects of asbestos weren't widely known. He retired in 1993. Two years later, he was diagnosed with asbestosis, a chronic inflammatory lung condition contracted from long-term exposure to asbestos.
As a result of his illness, Klees received a nontaxable settlement from BNSF for $15,869.79 in December 2001.
Local historian Deb Olson received an undisclosed settlement from BNSF last month. She also received settlements from several asbestos companies. Her husband, Terry, worked at the shops for 35 years before retiring in 2008. He died six months later at the age of 60. Lung cancer.
"His lungs were filled with asbestos," Olson said.
The railroad granted the settlement after years of negotiation, though they maintained Terry Olson's smoking habits were just as likely the culprit of his lung cancer as asbestos.
Deb Olson remains unconvinced, and she sees the settlement as an admission: The asbestos at the BNSF train shops led to her husband's death.
"At certain times in that shop, cigarette smoke was the cleanest thing those workers breathed," she said.
Besides Klees and Olson, four former employees from Burlingtion have received settlements from the railroad since 2006, and there is at least one ongoing lawsuit in the range of $100,000.
According to court documents, Philip Buck claims his work as a laborer and electrician at the shops exposed him to a variety of organic and chemical solvents that led to lung cancer and permanent brain damage, resulting in memory loss and early dementia. His lawyers, who were unavailable for comment, list his resultant medical expenses at $20,000 and climbing, his lost wages at about $60,000.
Though the train shop has been closed since 2003, the very chemicals that got Klees, Buck, Terry Olson and at least a few more of their coworkers sick remain on the site, contaminating the soil, groundwater and a creek that flows into Grease Lake, which the railroad once used as a disposal site for sanitary waste.
Entered into the Iowa Department of Natural Resource's Hazardous Waste Sites Registry in 1990, BNSF continues to monitor the contamination at the empty shops property. Recent data indicates the contamination levels do not represent a significant public health risk.
"It's probably one of the most assessed and evaluated environmental contamination sites in the state of Iowa," said Matt Culp with the Iowa DNR.
A lake called Grease
The BNSF train shops have been a fixture in Burlington since the 1850s. There's a small lake called Grease to the north of the sprawling complex of buildings, the 8-acre locomotive repair facilities crouching at the southern edge of the 12-acre property. Empty now except for a minimal security presence after BNSF moved its operations in 2003 to Galesburg, Ill., and Topeka, Kan., the shops have fallen into disuse, the grounds a patchwork of weeds, overgrowth, piles of strewn gravel and a fanning stretch of old rail.
In the day-to-day repair and manufacture of locomotives, workers at the shops routinely handled hazardous industrial chemicals, many of which remain on the site.
A mixture of Lyxol, mineral spirits, paint thinner and chlorinated solvent blends found on site have been flagged by the DNR as hazardous based on their ignitability. Analysis of sediment samples reveals the lingering presence of lead, arsenic, diesel, silicates, PCB-1260, trichlorethylene, chloro-benzene and the aromatic hydrocarbon xylene.
Tetrachlorethylene, or PCE, is used widely in dry-cleaning processes and was used by BNSF as a degreasing solvent. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as a likely carcinogen to humans. Studies cited on the EPA's website indicate prolonged exposure to the compound can lead to skin irritation, heart arrhythmia, central nervous system damage and reproductive complications. Though the levels appear to be contained, high concentrations of PCE have been found at Grease Lake and the train shops, even in fractured bedrock at depths of 160 feet.
Though the shops are in Burlington, neighboring West Burlington's water supply is protected by the Maple Mill Shale formation, according to the DNR, and off-site groundwater contamination does not appear to be a problem. West Burlington now is attached to the Burlington water system for reasons unrelated to the shops.
BNSF used PCE as a degreasing solvent until it fell out of favor in the early 1980s.
Klees recalled how he and his coworkers would come into the shops on Mondays, sometimes finding large rats feasting on the scraps of sandwiches that had been left in empty grease buckets over the weekend. The railroad didn't do anything to get rid of the rats and large cockroaches that nested near the lunch benches, so it was left up to Klees and the other workers to dispose of them.
They would rev up the degreasing pit, which typically was used to clean engine blocks and other machine parts off the locomotives. Then they would lower the barrels of rats onto the tray, shut the lid and let the degreasing fumes creep in.
"Those rats would have about one whiff of that stuff, and they would be dead," Klees said. "I breathed that in every day."
Louis Becker was a pipe-fitter at the train shops from 1974 to 2004, taking a job at Galesburg when BNSF moved its operations there in 2003. His job mostly exposed him to asbestos insulation and asbestos gaskets off the locomotives, though he recalls working in the degreasing pit.
"You didn't stay down there very long," Becker said. "You'd get high as a kite."
Becker said even wearing respirators, workers tried to stay in the pit for no longer than five minutes at a time.
"My partner when he was down there one time, he got too much of it, and we had to haul him up, get him outside for some fresh air," Becker said. "It was bad stuff."
Becker also recalled using floor-cleaning solvents that would burn skin on contact. Workers used rubber gloves, Becker said, but institutional safety precautions for the cleaning products, asbestos and degreasing solvents weren't implemented until 1988, when BNSF hired a safety officer. Until that point, Becker, Klees and their coworkers were uneducated about the toxic nature of the substances they handled on a daily basis.
"We didn't know," Becker said. "We were overwhelmed when all this came out."
Complications of the heart
Deb Olson is a writer and research historian. Apart from working at the Des Moines County Historical Society, she holds down two other part-time jobs to pay the bills. Next year, she will be without health insurance, and will be unable to access her husband's pension for another three years.
Though it was one of her husband's last requests she sue the railroad, it was not an easy decision for her to make. Her husband died in January, and she didn't file the lawsuit until that summer.
"I was sitting at his desk trying to figure out what to do and how I was going to pay my bills," Olson said. "On top of the desk were still sitting the Christmas cards we had gotten in December before he died, and one of those Christmas cards fell off the top and landed in front of me. It was from the union lawyers, and it was like 'OK, I'll call them.' "
Olson said she continues to feel a sense of great loss. Though the settlement will make her finances more manageable, no amount of money can replace her husband, she said. She remains conflicted about her feelings toward the railroad.
"Throughout history, there have been jobs that put people at risk," Olson said, adding the railroad always has been an essential part of Burlington's economy. "Somebody has to do some of these jobs. Somebody has to work on the railroad."
Reflecting back, Olson sometimes entertains the idea her husband made a choice, that he knew what risk he was taking working at the train shops but did it anyway. Olson said her husband's job supported her family for 30 years. It put her children through school. It put her through school. She sometimes wonders if her husband's death was the price for all that. Since he died, she finds herself questioning things more and more.
"Did they really understand the total ramifications of all these chemicals?" Olson said. "Do you really want to believe that some of these companies have purposefully said, 'Well, we know there's radium in some of the stuff we're making, but we don't care'? That's just scary to think that the world is like that."
In the end, Olson finds it hard to place all the responsibility for her husband's death on the railroad's shoulders.
"I want someone to blame, and they're as good a person as any," Olson said. "But I struggle with that. Is that right? Is any of this simple? I kind of don't think it is."
"Terry Olson was a good man," Klees said, recalling him from his time at the shops. "He was a hard worker."
When asked why he continued to work at the train shops with the knowledge every day he was being exposed to toxic chemicals, Klees' reply was gruff and abbreviated.
"Why did we do it? Hell, it was our job. We had to eat," Klees said. "I had a wife and kids. You didn't think about any of that."
Who watches the watchmen?
In a statement issued by BNSF, spokeswoman Amy McBeth said the railroad has been working for several years with the EPA on the assessment and monitoring of the site's contamination.
But who exactly has jurisdiction over the BNSF train shops is a point of some confusion between the DNR and the EPA's Region 7 office in Kansas City, Kan., which oversees federally controlled contaminated sites in Iowa.
Though it appears the EPA does indeed have authority, both agencies suggest the other is more involved in managing the site.
The DNR lists the EPA as the lead agency at the train shops in Burlington under the header "Grease Lake," but the EPA said it has not had any involvement with the site since the 1980s.
"I have now checked with all the appropriate people and had them check with their record databases, and the EPA has not had an active involvement or presence at that site for nearly two decades," EPA public affairs specialist Chris Whitley said. "As far as why it may be listed on the Iowa DNR's website, they may or may not have some level of remaining oversight with it."
Officials in the DNR's contaminated sites section were confused upon receiving this information, maintaining their office definitely has not had any active presence at the site for a similar time period.
"(The EPA) are the people running the show," said Cal Lundberg, DNR contaminated sites section supervisor. "We are as involved as the EPA asks us to be."
Matt Culp of the DNR contaminated sites section agreed with Lundberg.
"I'm not certain as to why anyone at the EPA would tell you they haven't done anything with that site in a long time. That couldn't be further from the truth," said Culp, referencing a pump test report from the site the EPA recently forwarded to the DNR. While BNSF is responsible for conducting such tests, Culp said, the EPA is nonetheless involved in the site's ongoing review process.
"I'm just flabbergasted they would take that position," Culp said.
He repeated the EPA is the lead agency at the site, and referred The Hawk Eye to project manager Ruby Crysler, the DNR contaminated site section's contact with the Region 7 EPA office. Crysler declined comment, deferring to Whitley, who said he'd spoken with Crysler about the matter.
Whitley said the only level of involvement Crysler might have is in receiving progress reports from BNSF, which she would review then place in storage. The DNR's website maintains an extensive database of documents the EPA has signed off on, some of which are dated this year. Those documents, which include correspondence between the EPA and BNSF, were forwarded to the DNR by the EPA Region 7 office.
"Any records that are going to exist for that site are probably off in a cave somewhere, or in archive storage," Whitley said, adding it would take a long time to even access those records. "We're pretty much an empty well as far as information."
He said since the 1980s, the EPA has regarded the BNSF train shops as a closed site.
"If it is a closed site, EPA's involvement and action with it is done for the present time," Whitley said.
Whitley elaborated, saying BNSF may indeed have a continuing obligation to the EPA to monitor the site, and the EPA still can be considered the lead agency even if the site is closed.
While there may be confusion over the level of involvement certain governmental regulatory agencies may or may not have at the train shops, nonesuch exists between BNSF and AECOM, a private firm the railroad has hired to monitor the site.
AECOM gathers field data and submits its findings from its 36 monitoring wells in the form of reports to BNSF, which in turn submits the reports to the EPA's Region 7 office. If upon review it is found the reports contain nothing out of the ordinary, the EPA files them away, according to Whitley.
"As far as what the EPA has done to change things at that property or to implement any kind of remedy or require work plans, I don't want to call it ancient history, but it goes back quite a way," he said.
AECOM provides up-to-date reports of its monitoring efforts that are viewable at the DNR's website. Their data continually indicates the contamination at the train shops does not represent a significant public health risk. AECOM Senior Project Manager Kurt Geiser declined comment.
Whitley and Culp at least agree it is a common practice for private firms to oversee the monitoring of contaminated sites across the country. The EPA does not have the resources to monitor the sites itself, Whitley said.
"The burden of managing an issue, whether it's a cleanup or a remedy, ultimately falls on the polluter," Whitley said.
"The bottom line is we know, based on database searches here, no one at EPA Region 7, for the past 20-plus years, has been involved with the site."
The train shops site is governed by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, which in Iowa, puts the train shops under the EPA's umbrella of influence. Culp with the DNR insists Crysler at the Region 7 office is the train shop's project manager and has had extensive contact with Geiser of AECOM. Whitley characterized Crysler's involvement differently.
"She is not involved in actually working at the site. She's someone who manages boxes and files," Whitley said.
Both Crysler and Geiser declined comment and did not return The Hawk Eye's calls.
Closing shops
Despite the settlements it has granted in the last 10 years, BNSF maintains it is not responsible for the illness of any of the workers in Burlington.
"Based on the analysis of the available medical and scientific literature, we believe that it is unlikely that the work at the West Burlington Shops was causally related to the development of any kind of of disease in these workers," BNSF director of public affairs Amy McBeth said in a statement. "However, due to the costs and uncertainties of litigation, settlements are sometimes effectuated in these situations."
Klees claims an X-ray scan of his chest taken in 1995 shows asbestos particles in his lung tissue. Becker, who did not pursue litigation, also has asbestosis, and said he has X-rays to prove it.
McBeth said BNSF, via AECOM, has been working with the EPA on the continued assessment of the site and is awaiting review before plans for remediation can move forward.
While BNSF does not have any plans for the site, McBeth said the railroad is open to other uses for the property that do not conflict with the ongoing monitoring of contaminants.
Mel Pins, the DNR's Brownfield Redevelopment Program coordinator, said though the site is contaminated, it does not necessarily qualify as a brownfield, and even if it did, remedying it likely would be beyond the scope of his budget. The DNR typically invests only $10,000 to $20,000 in any one brownfield property, Pins said. The train shops site likely would require more than that.
"The kind of response actions, or monitoring, or even what's been done to date there would be pretty big compared to the kind of funds I have," Pins said.
The brownfield program is voluntary, and mostly in place to help municipalities put smaller plots of land back into reuse. Most of the time the properties in question require little maintenance, and are only perceived to be contaminated when in fact they are not.
In the case of the Burlington train shops, that perception is an ongoing reality, and the chances of putting them back into use any time soon are slim.
"I don't know too many people that would want to transfer ownership or receive ownership of a RCRA site that's under corrective action, unless there were a whole lot of caveats that the seller will continue to take care of the problem," Pins said.
John Lovretta/The Hawk Eye
Mervin Klees, 83, who retired in 1993 from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train shops, stares out his front door Friday at his Burlington home. Klees recieved a settlement from BNSF in 2001 for his long-term exposure to asbestos while working at the BNSF train shops outside Burlington.
