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Officials, Residents Near Chemical Flume Square Off At Meeting

News Channel 8 photo by JIM FARQUHAR

Residents near the Raytheon defense plant in St. Petersburg say they aren't reassured by what company and state officials are telling them.

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By MARK DOUGLAS

mdouglas@wfla.com

Published: January 15, 2009

Residents who live near the Raytheon defense plant in St. Petersburg squared off Thursday night against state environmental regulators in a contentious meeting over the impact of an underground pollution plume under their homes, parks and playgrounds.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection held the forum at Azalea Middle School to brief residents on the final report submitted by Raytheon that describes the extent of the pollution first discovered 18 years ago.

Once the state accepts that report — and DEP regulators say they are ready to do just that — Raytheon will have 90 days to deliver a cleanup plan for the neighborhood.

Resident Carol Caleca said people in the neighborhood have waited too long already.

"How many more 90-day assessments do we need?" Caleca said. "I mean, it takes 10 years for you guys to get up and do something?"

Tom McClure said he's lived in the neighborhood for 30 years but is now ready to move.

"I have an offer for Raytheon," McClure said. "My house is available; if they want to buy it they can buy it cause I don't feel comfortable living in a community where we're being poisoned from the ground up."

Raytheon and the DEP say residents have nothing to worry about, not even the dozens of homeowners whose irrigation wells are polluted by chemicals from the plume.

"We haven't seen any chemical levels in any of the irrigation wells that give us concern," said Stephen Roberts from the University of Florida who acts as a toxicology consultant for the DEP.

Lawyers who are suing Raytheon in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of residents submitted reports in federal court last week indicating the plume is much larger than Raytheon claims. The reports also cite new test results that show chemical vapors from the underground plume are contaminating the indoor air of as many as a dozen homes near Raytheon.

Those tests contradict earlier findings by Raytheon and the state that say there is no pathway of exposure to nearby residents.

Regional DEP Director Barbara Getzoff said her agency has no plans to look at the new test results as part of its evaluation of the impact of the plume on nearby residents.

"We don't have the staff to go poking around court records to try and identify information that may or may not even be relevant to what we're doing," Getzoff said.

An interim cleanup of Raytheon's property began in November. The site closed last summer and is now for sale along with a number of homes in the neighborhood.

Mark Douglas can be reached at 727 709-2753

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