An interviewed witness says:

"One of the questionable jobs that I had at GLCC in the early to mid 1980's was working on a crew that emptied cylinders at the "Popping Field."  These cylinders were emptied into the air.  We did this on days when the wind was blowing away from the plant.  The cylinders were full of methyl bromide.  Some contained "bromo gas" with about 2% Chloropicrin in it, depending on what the customer ordered.  We had hundreds and hundreds of cylinders out there at a time.  Some were completely full, some partially full.  We let a lot of it out into the air.  For example, when there was an average of 100 pounds per cylinder, and we emptied about 200 per day, that would make about 20,000 pounds per day.  This was an ongoing process.  

The Popping Field was an acre or two, south of the railroad  tracks, southwest of the plant.  The railroad tracks were a pretty good distance away from where we were.  The area was fairly open but secluded.  the Popping Field was about a half or three quarters of a mile from the main facility.

We were deliberately opening those cylinders up, emptying them.  I'm sure that letting methyl bromide out into the atmosphere on purpose was something that was not supposed to be done.  I don't think GLCC was reporting these releases.  I'm sure that this is why they had us doing it on the back side of the plant where I'm sure they thought nobody could see us working.  They could have been reporting these releases, but I doubt it seriously.

We opened the cylinders facing them down wind.  We tried to do it on warm days so it would dissipate, but if it wasn't warm enough, much of the methyl bromide went on the ground.

Usually the truck would already be backed in there, with a long trailer (forty feet long or so) full of cylinders to be emptied.  There were sometimes about 500 cylinders on the trailer.  We would take them off of the truck, line them up 50 at a time, open the valves on them and shoot that stuff out into the air.  It took about 20 or 30 minutes for each set of 50 cylinders to vent out.  We made sure we had our gas masks handy, and did it on a windy day so that it wouldn't drift back on us.  To get rid of the contents of a load of cylinders, we did that all day, for days, until it was done.  Most of the time this was done during the summer, but sometimes we had to do it in the fall.  In the fall, we could only do it if the temperature was over 40 degrees (if it was warm enough outside since there was no equipment in the filed to pressurize the cylinders.

They were still emptying cylinders that way periodically when I left in the mid 1990s.  They might be vacuuming them into a holding tank, but when they are in a hurry, they will just empty them between Cylinder Prep and the Spray Dryer.  I have seen that done.  There are many, many chemicals handled at GLCC.  some of them cant be mixed together.  They would need too many different holding tanks, so sometimes the contents would be let out.

In the early or mid 1980's, they had us burying cylinders.  The cylinders mostly contained Methyl bromide with Chloropicrin.  Often there would be two labels, on on top of the other (one chemical name covering the other).  We did not know what was in some of the cylinders.  It actually could have been something from another company.  

Someone had already dug the hole about 15 or 20 feet deep.  When we went out to the hole, there were "pigs" (1500 lb cylinders) in the hole.  We threw cylinders (about 200 lb, 125 lb cylinders), full or partially full, into that hole.  We would go out to bury the cylinders at what seemed like northwest of the plant, about 400 yards north of the Popping Field, but still south of the railroad tracks.  I think they built a contractors shop on that spot, or covered it up with a gravel road.  They covered it up.  I have no doubt that is one of the sources of contamination in the groundwater. 

We had numerous spills, and there were several ponds.  there was another chemical call Ethylene dibromide (EDB) that does not dissolve in water.  We had to take samples and dump them into ponds.  That contamination would definitely go into the groundwater and you cannot get rid of it.  It was banned from one of our products, and from use in the US.

Bottles and buckets of chemicals were poured out into one pond east of the Bromine Tower.  That was the first pond that had to be covered up.  It was drained and dug up.  they poured soda ash in it, and lined it with plastic.  they hauled the dirt from inside it away, maybe to ENSCO.

Another pond was south of Main Office.  After we took samples we would end up with a couple of two gallon buckets of water from where we flushed the sampling lines.  We poured sample line flushing water into that pond for years.

There was another pond.  To find it, you would come in the main gate, and take a little road between Dock One and the Guard House, drive around that road three or four hundred yards, follow as it turns due south, and at the top of that hill, there was the pond.  That is where Bromine drums were washed at night.  I helped a few times.  When drums were dumped into the vat, the two inch line that ran from the vat down into that pond would get so full of Bromine that it would explode and orange cloud out.  This was done at night so no one would see that cloud.  A lot of those drums still had Bromine in them.

I inspected cans to make sure the seals would hold under pressure.  One time, the cans were off spec (didn't meet specifications/requirements), so they couldn't hold the methyl bromide under pressure.  But we were told to run (package) the methyl bromide in them anyway.  It was recorded in the log book that the cans were off spec and that we were told to use them anyway.  Truckloads of Methyl bromide were sent back because the cans would start leaking en route (during transportation).  Pallets and pallets of that leaking returned Methyl bromide were stored in the pallet yard between Packaging/Shipping and the Sprayer Dryer.  These cans were rusting and leaking.  The Methyl bromide was running on the ground, we could see it on the ground.  On days not hot enough for it to dissipate into the atmosphere (evaporate), it was obviously going to go down into the ground.

Another leak happened when we were on break.  the caustic in the top of the tank of Solbrom 90EC that we were packaging, overflowed.  I heard that it was because a manager opened the valve to get rid of that stuff on the top.  It was hundreds and hundreds of gallons just rolling down hill.

There have been several other spills inside the plant where the Methyl bromide was rolling down hill, or where it was standing on the ground, four, five or six inches deep, with a four foot halo just hovering over it, as it evaporated.

I remember a lot of different things I saw, including Chlorine and Bromine leaks, and that Popping Field was pretty bad."

Another interviewed witness tell me that the EPA has known about the buried cylinders, and has already fined GLCC for this.  I remember reading documented communications between David Hartley (ADEQ geologist) and Pete Howard (GLCC Environmental Manager) that talked about GLCC's potential liability as it may pertain to this.  When I come across that document again, I will insert it here and elaborate. 

SECTION 4 OF 25

GREAT LAKES CHEMICAL (CHEMTURA) CORPORATION AND THE PATHFINDERS CAMP