An interviewed witness says: "Routinely at GLCC, obvious efforts were made to falsify environmental testing reports to government.  Also, there were worker chemical exposures, effects from exposures, plant procedures, and safety issues that I am sure are not reported on worker safety reports."

An interviewed witness says: "Management said they knew what they were doing.  We trusted them.  Now I am surprised that so many of us who were working with chemicals at GLCC have started having unusual health problems, and that they are often such similar health problems.  At the time, I did not know how dangerous the chemicals that we worked with were.  I didn't think that what we were doing would hurt people outside the plant either."

An interviewed witness says: "There was an enormous EDB storage tank called T45.  It had a crack in the retaining wall, and the top was rusted off.  Inside the tank there was also rain water, rust, trash and two-by-fours.  On warm days, some of the contractors would ask, "What is that smell?  The tank had leaking weep holes, leaving it wet on the side, and anyone could smell that EDB.  That leaking tank was used to store waste EDB for years.  The tank took a long time to drain because for example, trucks would come from out of state with loads of EDB, and although that tank was not supposed to be used anymore, they would say, "oh, that is the last one," then the next week we would have the "last one" again, for years.  When I left, it was still standing with contaminated EDB in it, 7 feet deep and 30 to 40 feet across.  I don't think the use, or condition of this tank was reported as required."

An interviewed witness says:  "There is an outfall (stream) of water, running right by the corner of the bromine unit about 100 yards south of the Guard Shack.  Built out over that outfall there was a grating.  Usually you could see a rush of water going out under it.  The flow volume varied.  We could stand on the grating, open bottles of waste chemicals, and dump them into the outfall.  It was Preston Spires who would oversee all the main process and quality control labs.  At the main process and quality control labs, they poured waste from tests at the plant into "retain" bottles (one gallon bottles).  The chemicals in some retain bottles came from other places.  They sent those retain bottles to us to be dumped down the grate to go out of the plant.  It was considered too expensive to do anything else with them.  I found out from experience that when I poured one kind, a DPO (a bromine chemical), in fresh water, it splashed back on me, so I learned to just get away from the bottles when I opened them.  I had to put the bottle on the grating, crack it's lid open a bit, let it drip, and see what it was going to do before I opened it all the way.  Drums and bottles were routinely dumped there in the same place.  I doubt that this intentional outfall dumping was reported to government."  

An interviewed witness says:  "To get rid of a tank of EDB, we would run a poly-hose over to the tank, stick the other end of the hose in the grate over the outfall, and let it go.  There were times when other units would also run poly-hose to the outfall.  I'd say methyl bromide was one of the chemicals also dumped there that way.  When we would see a fog in the air over the water in the outfall, we'd break the glass in the air test set up to check the air for methyl.  Often the indicator turned black, so we knew there was a lot of methyl going down there.  All kinds of stuff went out that way.  Depending on which way the valve was turned, that water under the grate by the bromine unit would go out of the plant through outfall 002, or outfall 001.  Plant outfall 002 was a stream that ran out eastward from the plant under Highway 15 through Parker's Chapel to Loutre Creek.  Plant Outfall 001 was also east of the plant draining into Loutre Creek."

An interviewed witness says:  "Maintenance would set up a sump pump in one of the two EDB tanks made from parked rail cars (T117 and T122), or in that leaking contaminated EDB tank, T145.  They would say it is legal to pump EDB down the tail brine line, as long as we mixed it with water.  Unfortunately, the people responsible for the tail brine well injection system said that added water in the tail brine wasn't acceptable, because fresh water made the pH go up and they couldn't get the tail brine in the ground, so they would tell us not to put the EDB in the tail brine line.  We would end up putting the EDB out one outfall or another.  They were pumping it down through the outfalls with a little sump pump, out through all of the outfalls it would go through."

An interviewed witness says:  "GLCC workers were burying drums (that they shouldn't have buried) in different places.  One place I know was where we drove on an old dirt road to the back side of the plant, still on GLCC property, southwest of the plant, west of the tail brine pond, south of the tracks.  In those drums I know there was Bromine, Methyl bromide, and EDB."

An interviewed witness says:  "If we were in a hurry to get rid of some EDB that was shipped back, we would use the coffee.  We had two rail cars that were made into storage tanks for EDB that sat along the side of the road (tank 117 and 122).  At least during the 20 years that I was there, they would get cases of Folgers coffee from Richie's Grocery, and have us put it in one of those two rail car tanks.  We were to put steam under it and get it boiling with water, until the whole plant smelled like Folgers coffee.  The tanks were closed, but smelling strong.  Then they would open the drain and send it down through the ditch.  It looks like they had us do that to secretly boil off the EDB.  It would hide the smell of the EDB.  This routine probably was not reported."  

An interviewed witness says:  "The company would sometimes put things other than just brine through the bromine tower (they dumped stuff through the bromine  tower), where afterward the remains went to the tail brine tank.  On it's way to the tail brine tank, it would sometimes react with other materials and make red/orange clouds come out through vents in the line that ran to the tank.  When that happened there was not much that could be done about it.  as far as my job allowed.  Sometimes it seemed like the Bromine tower leaked that orange cloud for a long time.  Management knew it would happen, knew we were supposed to stop it, and knew how to stop it.  Management would say, "it is not us," but I knew it was us (GLCC) making the fumes.  Sometimes the upsets lasted, for example, for 5 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, or as long as it was dark enough at night to hide it.  I knew that if I insisted on stopping it, I would just be told, "you're stirring up trouble."  I knew it was my job to just let it go sometimes.  I know that not all of those releases were reported."

An interviewed witness says:  "Another interviewed witness would catch (take) the samples of the outfall water (in streams flowing out of the chemical plant).  If he got a sample that was "wrong," he had to come and say, "My sample is out of compliance, could you shut that off if you have anything going down that doesn't need to be."  We would shut off, or stop any dumping we were doing, and they had him resample the water every 20 or 30 minutes until he got one in compliance.  "In compliance" means that the results were clean enough or free enough from contamination, according to the lab.  Then he'd change the chart, put another sample in, and say afterward, "I got a good sample, you can start back."  They wouldn't take another sample until the next shift.  When he got a "good" sample, that's the one they put on the analysis sheet.  On the next shift, if the sample showed too much contamination, they would do the same thing over again.  That practice would affect the accuracy of required reporting to government." 

SECTION 2 OF 25

    GREAT LAKES CHEMICAL (CHEMTURA) CORPORATION AND THE PATHFINDERS CAMP