Around 60 people gathered Thursday to hear more information about what happens next for the contaminated Hercules-Pinova site and for the people nearby who carry the toxic chemicals from there in their bodies. Most left unhappy.
The update meeting on Thursday at the Glynn Brunswick Library was presented by Hercules, one of the companies responsible for cleaning up the toxic sites.
Participants said they felt that the contractors prioritized redevelopment plans over addressing the human health impacts.
“Some of us in this room have toxaphene in our bodies. So when is that conversation going to be had? Because, I mean, you’re talking about redevelopment, and every time I hear you say redevelopment, it hurts, and it hurts because there are people who died because of problems from these sites, and that’s not even in the equation,” said Anita Collins, a long-time resident of Brunswick who participated in the Emory blood tests that proved the contamination affected more than the soil.
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health tested the blood of 97 Glynn County residents in 2023 and published a peer-reviewed study this year. It showed that 20 percent of participants had higher concentrations of toxaphene than the national average.
The Hercules Brunswick Facility, which began operations in 1911, started producing the pesticide toxaphene in 1948. The chemical was marketed to protect cash crops like cotton. For decades, the company dumped the chemical into wastewater which flowed into Terry Creek.
Hercules is responsible for cleaning up three facilities: the 009 Landfill, the Terry Creek Dredge Spoils/Hercules Outfall site and the Brunswick Facility. It has finished remediation at the 009 Landfill, but Terry Creek remains on the federal Superfund list. The Brunswick facility was the site of a fire in 2023, but it was sold to Pinova and has since been demolished.
The town hall-style presentation outlined the work completed from the 1980s to the present. Hercules contractors noted that they have collected over 2,700 groundwater samples, 5,400 sediment and soil samples and removed 135,000 tons of soil. So far, more than $86 million had been spent on remediation, according to the presentation.
Marty Crook, a geologist with Geosyntech, said that they are implementing a corrective action plan overseen by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. However, they are also planning for the future and remediating the land to ready it for redevelopment.
Hercules said that the data gathered around that site and its surroundings does not show a known unacceptable risk to offsite properties, but the officials did not specify when the data was last collected or if data was collected while the plants were still operational.
“I can’t tell you today which developer will come here for exactly how this land will be used in the future. What I can tell you about is: here’s what we’re doing to attract appropriate redevelopment,” said Cynthia Draper, an environmental engineer with Wood PLC.
Some attendees were old enough to remember the facility during its peak production in the 1950s, while others who had just finished work still wore their day job uniforms. They said the company did not seem to consider the human element. Hercules said it is working on an updated human risk assessment, which is set to be finished in December.
The current risk assessment is being completed on an industrial standard rather than a residential one, which has a higher threshold for contamination. Officials said that they would complete a residential assessment if necessary.
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