Public officials said that the fire at Chemtool will be extinguished within the next couple of days. But Rockton community members are worried that cleanup hasn’t come soon enough.
Chemtool contracted waste management company Clean Harbors to dispose of debris in people’s yards. But in a community meeting last night in Rockton organized by the Citizens for Chemtool Accountability Group, several residents shared that they’re still waiting for Clean Harbors to come to their homes.
Chemtool spokeswoman Alicia Gauer said in a statement to WNIJ that “There are approximately 30 individuals from Clean Harbors working on these tasks.”
Gauer says that requests from the same neighborhood will be addressed at the same time, so calls may not be in the order received. But she says that Clean Harbors is compiling a service list and residents need only to call once.
Gauer says that she expects that calls “logged to date” will be serviced by the end of the week. She adds that the service will be provided as long as it’s needed.
All debris collected by Clean Harbors will be sent to an EPA-approved facility for proper disposal per environmental regulations.
Meanwhile, The US Chemical Safety Board is currently on scene at the Chemtool plant to investigate the cause of the fire. Once that investigation and those by other agencies are complete, all results will be released to the public.
- Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project which is a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms.