The EPA presenter was from the office in Atlanta.

The site is the Red Panther site located off of Hwy. 49. Now known as Coahoma Warehouse.  The area to be surveyed is three-quarters of a mile long and a half-mile wide and includes the residential area behind the plant known referred to the 18th Street Neighborhood.

Roughly an area going from Booker T. Washington School following the properties backing up to the Sunflower River to where the old cotton warehouse was.  All the commercial properties around the plant and to Hwy. 49.

There's a drainage ditch behind the plant that has particular interest.

A contracted firm by the EPA will be in town June 28-30.  They will sample 68 soil sites and 35 air sample sites.

In the preliminary research, 30 sites were surveyed.  Twenty-six were found to have the "fingerprint" of chemicals used by the plant.  Of those 26, 11 showed toxicity above levels for long term healthy exposure.

I emphasize the words "potential" and "may" in this next statement.  The EPA presenter said these chemicals may have had the potential of impacting the Sparta and Wilcox aquifers from which he said Clarksdale draws it water.

There were 75 people at the meeting from the area.  Most of the questions had to do with the procedure used for sampling.  NONE had to do with where to lay blame.

The presenter said a corporation had been located which could be held responsible and this company was strong enough not to file bankruptcy for facing to pay for this.

A question was raised as to the health effects of the chemicals and the answer was that the Public Health Department would have to be brought in the determine that.

Should this be a super fund site, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) would be the lead agency for clean up and I would presume contact the responsible company to pay the cost of cleanup.

If the site does not rise to the EPA level, than the State's Department of Environmental Quality would be the lead agency.  If the corporation sets aside enough to clean this up, there should be no problem.  If not, the State will have to put up 10 percent of the funds to access a Federal fund to pay for the cleanup.

I am aware of a cleanup of PCB's going on in Hattiesburg the state is responsible for.  A LOT of work went into that one and residents are still contacting us on it.

I am attaching a map of the area.  The company can be seen as the metal roofed building roughly in the middle and you will see properties outlined in red.

A soil sampling area is 25 square feet from which nine samples are taken.

Through all of this I am simply amazed how much people want government out of their lives, but when something like this happens, a disaster occurs, or anything else goes wrong the first thing we turn to is government and we blame government for not acting quickly enough or not monitoring more closely or more often.

I will tell you, for the last two years I have been trying to get a fee bill passed to allow DEQ to charge permitting fees and monitoring companies who have the potential to pollute.

The pro-business lobby and the pro business legislators keep voting "no" in my committee.  They argue that if government makes them do something that impacts the bottom line, then the taxpayer ought to pay for it.

We are the ONLY state that does not charge these fees.  The taxpayers pay to permit and monitor companies that have the potential to pollute.  In the end, we also pay for their pollution.  By the way during a round of cuts for DEQ, dam inspection monitoring was cut.  Do you live below a dam?  Is it safe?  Who knows.

Next time besides asking the usual questions where a politician stands on abortion, guns and immigration...ask them where they stand on giving DEQ the $$$ to monitor polluters.