Alachua County may be home to facilities on an Environmental Protection Agency watch list for releasing chemicals into the air.
Last week, the Center for Public Integrity and National Public Radio news published an internal EPA watch list of serious or persistent Clean Air Act violators that have not been punished for recent violations. NPR.org and iWatchNews.org also released an interactive map of 17,000 U.S. facilities that may be emitting harmful chemicals.
Eleven Alachua County locations were included on the list for potential health risks and given ranks from one to five, with five indicating the highest hazard level.
Facilities falling into the level-five category include the defunct Moltech Power Systems Inc. battery plant, 12801 U.S. Highway 441 North in Alachua, and the Cabot/Koppers Superfund site, 200 NW 23rd Ave. in Gainesville.
The Gainesville Regional Utilities Deerhaven Generating Station, 10001 NW 13th St., is in the level-four category.
Randy Barrett, communications director for the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch, said this is the first time this information was made public. He said because the EPA hadn't been properly enforcing the Clean Air Act, a number of people did not know they were on the map or even why they were on the map.
GRU Supervising Utility Engineer Robert Klemans said he does not know what puts Deerhaven in the level-four category but said he thinks any kind of facility that has emissions would be listed on the map.
"Deerhaven is one of the cleanest facilities in the country," he said. "We take environmental compliance very seriously."
GRU spokeswoman Katie Weitekamp said the company has gone above and beyond environmental requirements with the installation of $100 million of state-of-the-art equipment. She said GRU has received zero violation notices in the past year.
Robert Pearce, 59, a Stephen Foster neighborhood resident who is on the Protect Gainesville's Citizens board, said he has been "fighting tooth-and-nail" to eliminate contamination caused by the Superfund site.
Of the 1,600 facilities the EPA classified as "high priority violators," 300 have been on the list for more than a decade.
It sometimes takes months or years for state and federal regulators to enforce pollution policies.
