Concerns growing after July chemical release in Canfield

"No one even seems to know what's going on or what's happening," said a concerned Brad Kinkade of Canfield.

Two months ago, we told you about an incident at Material Sciences Corporation on West Main Street.
The company released waste water into a storm drain.
It happens to sit right next to Sawmill Creek and a Mill Creek Metroparks bike trail.
The EPA slapped MSC with a violation, and at the time the problem seemed under control.

But over the last week, the scope of the problem has come into sharper focus.
Kinkade, who lives nearby, has noticed changes after recent rain.

"So I started making some calls and basically the spill hasn't stopped," he said. "It has breached their earthen dams they they've put in and it's now in the wetlands."

Which has forced crews to bring in pumps, concrete and other mitigation equipment.
According to Kinkade, MSC blamed the situation on a maintenance issue.
He says the EPA is doing a remedial investigation to determine whether that's actually the case.
Kinkade also says EPA specialist Kurt Kollar told him that waste water contained heavy metals, arsenic and cyanide.

"Mr. Kollar's exact words when I spoke with him were that this material is an imminent threat," Kinkade told Canfield City Council members at their Wednesday meeting.

An imminent threat that city leaders somehow just learned about.

"I received an email about 12:30 this afternoon from fire chief (Don) Hutchinson," said council president Christine Oliver. When we asked her if there was a breakdown or failure in communication, she said "absolutely", adding "I think it's a travesty to have a breakdown of communication like that...so I am going to address this at the next fire board meeting."

In the meantime, city leaders plan to contact the Mahoning County Health Department.
There's no word how much longer the remedial investigation into the incident will take.
For Brad Kinkade, every day that passes without a permanent fix is one too many.

"I just want to see them get it right," he said.

REPORTER'S NOTE: We have been reaching out to Aaron Young, Mill Creek Metroparks director, August Mac, the company doing the cleanup at the release site, and Kurt Kollar, EPA specialist. We will update our story as we hear from these contacts.