EPA $22.6M Minden cleanup completion years away even with recent WV support pledge

PCBs have been known to cause cancer and have been linked to low birth weight and immune system effects. The EPA and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection have been concerned by the site — the location of former Shaffer Equipment Co. property near Arbuckle Creek — being in a flood hazard area and the likelihood of potential releases of PCBs to downstream wetlands and residential properties during future flood events.

But remedial action won’t come until the EPA finishes the remedial design by its early 2027 target date, EPA spokesman Derek VanHorn told the Gazette-Mail Tuesday.

The EPA is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the remedial design of the cleanup, VanHorn said in an email.

Citing federal statute requiring a state to pay 10% of costs of remedial action, the EPA indicated to the Gazette-Mail last year funding hadn’t been secured for the project, with the state lacking the 10% cost share money that it will eventually need to move the project forward.

EPA remedial project manager Aaron Mroz said in March 2023 he hoped the EPA would announce its selected remedy by the end of September 2023. But the EPA didn’t unveil its plan until July 2024. Mroz said the 10-month delay was driven by a review of increasing project costs and working with the DEP toward concurrence with the plan from the latter agency. Mroz said the DEP indicated it couldn’t concur until it secured its expected cost share for cleanup.

In April 2025, DEP Secretary Harold Ward signed a contract with the EPA agreeing to pay 10% of the construction phase cost of the cleanup plan after the state’s 2025 budget provided the federally matched funds. The contract required the EPA to pay a lump sum of roughly $2.26 million for the state’s share by June 30, 2025.

The contract included a project schedule predicting end dates of:

• June 2027 for remedial design
• December 2027 for construction contract award
• July 2028 for remedial action construction
• December 2028 for remedial action report

DEP spokesman Terry Fletcher said the DEP will support the EPA during cleanup, mainly assisting with technical reviews of design documents developed by the Army Corps of Engineers, assisting with oversight during removal action, participating in site inspections and coordinating with the EPA to determine when the construction phase of the cleanup is done.

VanHorn said the EPA will notify the community upon completion of the remedial design and is planning to hold an outreach event so the community can understand how the cleanup will be finished and what to expect.

Comments included as part of the EPA’s 204-page July 2024 Record of Decision selecting the contaminated soil removal plan underscore a lack of community trust in the agency.

Minden residents have been outspoken critics of the EPA’s oversight amid decades-old concerns that the contamination has driven up cancer incidence.

Longtime Minden resident Susie Worley-Jenkins is one of many who have lived with long-festering health concerns in the shadow of the site. Worley-Jenkins’ husband died from kidney cancer; her mother, lung cancer; and two neighbors, brain tumors. Worley-Jenkins has fought cervical, breast and skin cancer.

“There’s no dollar amount for people’s lives, and to let this go for that long and not do anything about it, that makes me angry,� Worley-Jenkins said in a phone interview in response to the EPA’s plan release last year.

Many members of the Minden community have requested the EPA fund the relocation of residents of the once flourishing mining community. The EPA said in its July 2024 decision document that permanent relocation is considered only when contamination poses an immediate threat that cannot be mitigated or remediated, indicating that’s not the case in Minden.

In response to comments stating the contamination can’t be removed, and questioning how many times the EPA will have to come back to clean up contamination at the former Shaffer site, the EPA said its plan is a “permanent solution� for onsite soil that won’t require the EPA to return.

Asked by a community member if community members could have a say in how to spend money being allotted for the EPA’s plan, the agency replied in its Record of Decision that money used for the cleanup can’t be provided to the community for other purposes.

“The problem with the EPA and Minden is that the EPA wants to play God. They want to treat us like we are children,� lifelong Minden resident Darrell “Butter� Thomas said following last year’s cleanup plan release.

EPA noted threat of PCB-contaminated soil migration

The EPA’s Record of Decision released in July 2024 detailing its plan consists of four main components:

• Removing a one-acre impervious cap and barrier contaminated by PCBs
• Excavating PCB-contaminated soil
• Disposing of excavated PCB-contaminated soil and the impervious cap and barrier at an approved offsite disposal facility
• Backfill with clean fill as needed

The closest residential property is roughly 730 feet west of the center of the cap, according to EPA spokeswoman Kelly Offner.

The Shaffer Equipment Co. built electrical substations for the coal mining industry from approximately 1970 to 1983, according to the EPA, which said the company’s mismanagement of electrical transformers resulted in oils containing PCBs being released into the environment.

The Record of Decision notes the former Shaffer Equipment Co. property is within Arbuckle Creek’s floodplain and that flooding events have hit Minden in June 2016, June 2017, June 2020 and July 2022, in addition to a July 2001 flood that engulfed the town in several feet of water.

Per the EPA’s plan, remediation waste with PCB concentrations greater than 50 milligrams per kilogram would be disposed of under guidelines detailed in the federal Toxic Substances Control Act.

Mroz said there are no disposal sites in West Virginia for waste with PCB concentrations greater than 50 mg/kg, meaning that waste would be transported elsewhere. However, Mroz said he believed there are West Virginia facilities designated to accept waste with the lower PCB concentrations of 1 and 50 mg/kg, and that transport destination decisions would be made during remedial action following completion of the design phase.

The EPA estimates roughly 57% of excavated material would have PCB concentrations greater than that threshold, based on prior removal actions within the former Shaffer property and known concentrations of PCBs left under the impervious cap.

The EPA says in its Record of Decision that precautions to avoid a release of PCB-contaminated soil under its chosen plan include:

• Continuous weather monitoring and working during months when flooding is less likely
• Engineering controls for the excavation area
• Excavating in small areas at a time
• Having a mobile laboratory onsite so backfilling can be completed as soon as possible to minimize open excavations
• Proper temporary storage of contaminated materials

The EPA says in the decision document it observed an increase in disposal costs for PCB-contaminated soil that increased the cost of its chosen plan nearly 50% since March 2023, when the agency estimated the project would cost $15.5 million — well below its current $22.6 million estimate.

The EPA already had spent roughly $23.7 million on cleanups and investigations associated with contamination caused by the Shaffer Equipment Company, the agency said in the Record of Decision.

Assessment found cancer risk doubled regulatory threshold

An August 2022 human health risk assessment for the former Shaffer property conducted by Nobis Group, a New Hampshire-based engineering and environmental consulting firm, is cause for cancer-related concern.

The EPA’s March 2023 proposal noted the assessment found cancer risk double the regulatory threshold for potential future resident exposure to chemicals of concern in total soil (ingestion, skin contact and inhalation). The assessment found a noncarcinogenic hazard double the regulatory threshold for potential future child resident exposure to chemicals of concern in surface soil (ingestion and skin contact).

Contaminants of potential concern, partly defined by the EPA as chemicals with detections that exceed selection criteria, identified in the human health risk assessment for the former Shaffer property include:

• PCBs
• Dioxins, a highly toxic carcinogen that can cause developmental and reproductive issues
• Benzo(a)pyrene, a carcinogen that can cause skin rashes, a burning feeling, warts and bronchitis
• Arsenic, a carcinogen naturally present at high levels in groundwater

But PCBs were the only group the EPA identified as warranting a response action.

Minden’s cancer death rate per 100,000 people from 1979 to 2016 more than doubled that of the rest of Fayette County, according to a 2017 finding by the state Department of Health and Human Resources’ Health Statistics Center. The Minden cancer death rate more than quadrupled the rest of Fayette County’s rate from 1990 through 1999.

In an August 2017 email, Daniel Christy, then director of the Health Statistics Center, cautioned Dr. Hassan Amjad — a Fayette County physician researching PCB exposure impacts on cancer rates in Minden who died later that month — that the finding hadn’t been vetted by a senior epidemiologist and wasn’t prepared for release.

But Christy added the cancer death rate based on U.S. Census Bureau population estimates and Health Statistics Center data was still “concerning.�

In 2023, then-Department of Health and Human Resources spokeswoman Jessica Holstein said the Health Statistics Center’s 2017 finding and other Cancer Registry data weren’t sufficient to support a cancer cluster occurring in Minden.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has conducted independent assessment of health risks at the Minden site.

ATSDR staff providing technical expertise for the Shaffer Equipment Superfund site in Minden has had work interrupted by being placed on leave by the Trump administration as part of its mass downsizing of the federal workforce, per sources familiar with the program.

The EPA’s Superfund program consists of sites of national priority among known or threatened releases of hazardous substances throughout the country.

EPA working on plan proposal for other site areas

The EPA is working to complete a Proposed Remedial Action Plan for the remaining soil and sediment areas of the site, including Arbuckle Creek, the wetlands and residential properties, VanHorn said Tuesday.

The Proposed Remedial Action Plan will outline the EPA’s preferred cleanup for addressing contamination and include a 30-day public comment period whose dates are yet to be determined, according to VanHorn.

The EPA anticipates the plan will be completed by the end of 2025, VanHorn said.