EPA officials will meet Parramore residents

The federal Environmental Protection Administration will be in Parramore on Thursday, March 1, with critical information for residents.

Agency officials will be holding two information sessions at the Callahan Center to discuss the Superfund toxic chemical site that is less than a block from the popular neighborhood center. The sessions will be at 12 noon and 6 p.m.

Parramore's Superfund site

More than 100 years ago the Orlando Gasification Plant was in operation at the corner of Robinson and Terry – the current site of the TECO – People’s Gas offices. The plant processed coal to produce gas for stoves and lights.

A witch’s brew of dangerous toxic waste from that operation remains in the soil and ground water at that site. The danger has been known since at least 1988. In 2015 the “potentially liable parties” – the city of Orlando, Atlanta Gas Light, Duke Energy, Continental Holdings LLC, and an individual landowner — signed a consent decree to clean the Orlando Gasification Plant site.

The EPA officials are meeting with residents to discuss the plan and timing for removing the toxic soil from that site.

In addition, Parramore residents have expressed concern about widespread air and soil pollution throughout the community that is a crazy quilt of industry mixed with homes and apartments.

Late last year Parramore pollution was the subject of a major investigative article published by the Huffington Post. (Click here to read that article.)

Activist Lawanna Gelzer and others have called for a scientific assessment of the health of present and former Parramore residents to understand how they have been affected by pollution in the community.

The Huffington Post report, included a video interview of longtime Parramore resident Latoya Lee, who died at age 44, a day after she was interviewed by reporters.

Mrs. Lee, who suffered from several illnesses including asthma, was living across the street from the Orlando Gasification Plant site when she passed away.