Quincy is a small community of 42,000 people, located on the banks of the Mississippi River just 150 miles north of St. Louis, MO. Our town is a great place to live and to raise a family. We have enjoyed years of good economic growth, good schools, strong community involvement and good city leadership. Of all the expectations we have for our town, having our local landfill declared a Superfund site was not one of them. In 1993, the Mississippi River reached its highest flood stages in history prompting our community to rally together and beat back the flood and its effects. Now, my community has been forced to band together again -- to fight the unfairness of a Superfund law that is punishing us for legally disposing of our trash. Companies that once worked together to save our town from the flood, are now suing each other because of this Superfund landfill. Companies who have worked together for so many years are now suing one another.
For my company, it started on February 10, 1999 when we received a letter in the mail from the EPA that stated 6 large local corporations and the city were looking to recover some of their cost for the cleanup of our local landfill. Even though what we had hauled there was only trash and totally legal, EPA said that because our trash was sent to that site, we were potentially responsible for paying our proportional share of the cleanup.
When I read the letter, I felt sick. For me and the 148 other companies that received the letter, it was unexpected and without warning. At first, we had no idea of what the letter was telling us. It was asking us, as small companies, to "contribute" 3.1 million dollars. I laughed at the language they used, contribute. They weren't asking us to contribute; they were threatening us to pay. My company's designated amount to pay was $42,000, and I consider myself lucky. There were several other companies and individuals being asked to pay $70,000, $85,000 and some to pay over $100,000. As I read through the list, I saw Catholic grade schools, our local university, bowling allies, restaurants, small Mom and Pop trash haulers, furniture stores and our local McDonald's listed to pay. Most of the companies named only generated waste like plain office trash or food scraps. In the mid 70's, when our company's trash began to be put in the landfill, I was in college. One of the owners of another company was only 7 when this landfill was in use. Yet we are being held responsible. The document made it sound as though we were major hazardous waste dumpers. Yet, nowhere in the document did it list what waste we were accused of dumping. It only said that our trash was hauled to the landfill during the time in question and we now have to help pay for the cleanup, regardless of the fact that there was no other place to dump our trash.
On February 24, 1999, the EPA sent one of their attorneys to Quincy to help explain the letter and to answer questions. The meeting lasted for over two hours. The EPA attorney tried to answer questions and to comment on how the law was being applied. Many people stood up and pleaded their situations and how unfair and un-American this whole situation was. He admitted to everyone there that the law was probably unfair and very harsh. He said it was intended to be harsh, but he couldn't do anything about its unfairness. Even though the law seemed unfair, he said that it was all he had to work with.
EPA and the 6 large companies weren't concerned about the waste that was sent to the landfill. The make-up of what we sent there was irrelevant. It was the volume that we sent to the landfill that they cared about, even if the trash was not dangerous. They knew we didn't send hazardous waste and they knew we couldn't afford to fight them. We became an easy money source for them because of the real threat of litigation by the 6 large companies. And when you think about it, what small company can take on 6 large corporations and the EPA alone and win? If we didn't accept the settlement offer, the big 6 would sue us for the entire cleanup cost. We were stuck. Pay up or be wiped out. The attorney for the EPA admitted that it would cost us more to fight them in court to prove we didn't haul hazardous waste to the landfill than to just go ahead and settle. It all came down to money .... and they had more than we did.
Who were the companies forced to pay this settlement? Most of the companies were individual people. Some were independent trash haulers; mom and dad hauling to help supplement their income to help raise their families. If you talk to them, you will notice they didn't make much money hauling trash. Others were small building contractors. Some are people in their retirement years. Some are widows whose husbands have passed away and they now have this settlement to deal with. Some are sons whose fathers once owned the business and now, years later, they have inherited the problem. We have business owners who bought businesses a few years ago who had nothing to do with this landfill, yet are being forced to pay up because they now own the assets and are the present money source. If they could have known this liability was going to be theirs in the future, they never would have bought the business. Mothers and fathers would have been reluctant to pass a family business -- and its liability -- to the next generation. We have some men in their late 70's and early 80's that could lose their life's savings when they should be enjoying their retirement years. They are spending their time and money paying the EPA for something they did 25 years ago that was legal. Are these the people Superfund was designed to collect from or has something gone wrong? It is needless business pressures like this that destroy small businesses and cause undo pain and hardship. Victimizing small businesses is not going to help speed the cleanup of Superfund sites. Most of the cost contributed by our companies to this site didn't clean one ounce of the landfill. The money went to attorneys. Of all the money spent, the attorneys got the most. Consider how much the EPA and the big 6 gave attorneys in order to get the settlement with the 149 small companies. The EPA itself admits that 2/3 of the money in the Superfund is spent on litigation, not cleaning up the hazardous sites. The estimate for the legal help that some of us received in Quincy (not including the settlement amounts) is close to $500,000. This is hard stuff. And for what? Who wins? The attorneys are the winners. It was just reported in our local newspaper that the EPA and the 6 corporations are now suing all those companies who didn't settle, resulting in more business for the attorneys. As I understand it, these companies will be allowed in later months to bring third party lawsuits. Where will it end? I do not think this law's intent is to place hardships on small business when the ultimate winners are the attorneys, not the environment.
To me and the thousands of small business owners that have been in my shoes, Superfund is not some abstract policy. Superfund affects small businesses, and has devastated my friends and neighbors, both emotionally and financially. Why? For doing the right thing 20-some years ago. I greatly admire the strength of Barbara Williams who has addressed this committee in the past. But, there are tons of small business owners that don't have the courage to fight. What will happen to those small businesses if we let this continue unchecked?
Today our country's leaders need to look again at the intent of this law called Superfund. I don't believe you intended for it to burden or destroy individuals and small businesses in order to clean up hazardous sites. We have a chance to help small businesses get out from under this problem by supporting the language in the Superfund Program Completion Act of 1999.
I commend this committee for looking seriously at this problem, and hope that this is the year small business owners will gain freedom from this unfair system. Small businesses need your help now. Please change this law for the benefit of small business owners and help restore some common sense to the Superfund law.