Raytheon cleanup may take 78 years

Homeowners surrounding the now-shuttered Raytheon defense plant may not live long enough to see their neighborhood rid of the industrial pollution that's been creeping under parks, playgrounds and homes for decades.

In a new report, Raytheon's environmental consultant Arcadis says it will take as long as 78 years to clean up the last of an underground mess that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has known about since 1991.

Neighbors were already angry when the company said last year that it would take more than 25 years to clean up the toxic waste plume that has polluted dozes of irrigation wells in their neighborhood.

"Some people are so frightened and disgusted they've literally walked away from their homes and their mortgages," said Dominic Griesi, president of the Azalea Homeowners Association.

Griesi is one of the litigants in a federal class-action lawsuit filed against Raytheon.

"I don't think any of us are going to be around in 78 years," he said.

"The whole basis for the lawsuit is the loss of value of our homes and our property and they're virtually impossible to sell right now."

"It's incredibly frustrating," said state Sen. Charlie Justice, whose district includes the now-vacant Raytheon plant and surrounding residential neighborhoods.

"I think that DEP and we all need to sit down and make sure this happens a lot faster than 78 years," Justice said. "People have waited long enough already."

One of the sore spots for residents is that no one bothered to tell most of them until after News Channel 8 revealed the spreading pollution in March 2008.

Justice is sponsoring legislation this year that would require polluters to notify public officials and property owners within 500 feet of any known contamination

Raytheon spokesman Jonathan Kasle said most of the pollutants under residential properties will be gone long before the 78-year figure quoted in the Arcadis report to state regulators.

"We're going to do this thoughtfully with people's health and safety in mind," Kasle said. "We're going to take an aggressive approach."

The report was sent to the DEP on Thursday by Arcadis and released by state officials Monday. The 278-page document comes in response to dozens of technical questions posed by the DEP and EPA in August after Raytheon submitted its original Remediation Action Plan to the state for approval.

In one of those questions the DEP wanted to know what Raytheon meant when it said in a previous report that the cleanup would take "25 years or longer."

The Arcadis response outlines a number of time frames for cleanup at 15 wells where the company plans to pump and treat hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater contaminated with toxic and cancer-causing industrial chemicals.

The plan calls for the extraction of nearly 345 million gallons of polluted water that would undergo treatment before disposal in the city's sewer system. That's enough water to fill The Florida Aquarium's main coral reef tank more than 689 times.

Startup costs are estimated at $22 million and maintenance and operation at $1 million a year.

If the project started this year it wouldn't end until the year 2088, assuming Raytheon's proposal wins state approval and everything goes as planned.

"If we can accelerate, we will," Kasle said. "Obviously we're going to learn as we go."