Having lived along Hogtown Creek since 1989, 61-year-old Ewen Thomson has long appreciated its beauty. But within its waters, there also lie deposits of pine tar, a sticky residue that has flowed through both Hogtown and Springstead creeks for decades.
This month, Cabot Corp. plans to begin its pine tar removal project, which aims to remove deposits from 17 areas identified during a 2009 survey by the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department. The tar is generally buried between 18 inches and 24 inches underground.
Officials from Alachua County and the City of Gainesville approved the plan in December.
“It’s long overdue,” Thomson said. “It impacts us because we have this beautiful creek which looks nice, but on the other hand it’s just — how do you describe it — it’s full of pollutants and not healthy.”
The creeks’ pine tar problem dates back to 1945, when Cabot established a pine tar plant in Gainesville. The operation ran until 1966, when the company closed the operation. Pine tar leaked into Hogtown and Springstead creeks over time, filling the water with gooey clots that John Mousa, pollution prevention manager for ACEPD, describes as a “nuisance.” While pine tar doesn’t pose serious health risks, it has been the source of various complaints from the public, he said.
Cabot will work with prime contractor Weston Solutions to complete its plan. The company is currently talking to several property owners along the creeks to get their permission to remove deposits on their property.
The company plans to finish getting property owner permission during the next week. If it gets enough approvals, it should be able to begin work later this month. Cabot plans to complete its work in February, which will allow it to finish removing pine tar before seasonal Florida rainstorms make working on the creek difficult.
The cleanup effort will focus on up to about 17 areas identified as containing pine tar deposits by the ACEPD survey, depending on how many property owners consent to the work plan.
While the efforts will not eradicate all tar deposits from the creeks, Mousa hopes that it will help solve much of the problem.
“We’re hoping that if we can get a lot of it removed, the complaints will be less and it will be better for the aquatic system, for the ecology and for the people in the creek,” he said.
While Cabot is implementing the actual program, it will be overseen by both the ACEPD and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA will ensure the program runs smoothly and that the pine tar is properly removed, said Scott Miller, the EPA remedial project manager for the Cabot-Koppers Superfund site.
The Superfund site, according to Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe, has long been a problem for Gainesville and Alachua County with the pine tar cleanup being the result of the work of several city commissions and mayors. They have worked like a tag team on the problem, taking steps toward new solutions with each administration, Lowe said.
While the pine tar cleanup may help remove a major nuisance from Hogtown and Springstead creeks, it is far from a final remedy, Mousa said. The waters are plagued by other chemicals, which may have come from either the Cabot or Koppers sites that are the subject of Superfund cleanup efforts by the EPA and other groups.
