A month after our reporting on the escalating cleanup operation near Sawmill Creek and the Mill Creek MetroParks bikeway in Canfield, Brad Kinkade's concerns have escalated, too.

"We don't know anything," he said. "You can see the roads they've literally put in, the pumping stations they've put in. The work is constant."

In October, the Ohio EPA's Office of Emergency Response issued violations to Material Sciences Corporation, believed to have released wastewater into a drainage ditch. MSC created a website with updates, one of which explained that elevated levels of sodium hydroxide and even cyanide had been found in testing.

Chain link fencing and tarp has replaced the snow fencing we saw last month to keep people out of the area.
Kinkade says his correspondence with the EPA suggests the leak hasn't been sourced, and the severity of the impacts unknown.

"We've heard that it came from a drainage sewer pipe, that it's been going on for years, that they've contained the current spill but they haven't necessarily found where it's coming from, so it's still an issue," said Kinkade.

After he took his concerns to a city council meeting last month, he said city manager David D'Apolito told him he had no more information, and that MetroParks and the EPA had taken over the cleanup.

According to documents presented at a Cardinal Joint Fire District board meeting last week, the fire department only helped the EPA dig a ditch at the cleanup site, and has "minimal responsibility":

 

But public documents from the EPA suggest the agency is only counseling on cleanup procedures and issuing fines if they're not adhered to.
August Mack, the company hired by MSC to do the cleanup, said in a statement Kinkade shared with 21 News that it "continues to conduct recovery and assessment" work at the site.

While all that goes on, Kinkade is calling for city leaders in canfield to play a bigger role.

"They need to push and make the directive, control the narrative. They can't just wait for someone to tell them something."

We reached out to city manager D'Apolito, MetroParks planning and operations director Justin Rogers, and MSC.
The Ohio EPA and Canfield fire officials are expected to be at Wednesday's city council meeting at 5:30pm.