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by Jack Unruh
Remembering her pivotal and
tireless work to rid Overland Park neighborhood of the radioactive Shattuck
Superfund site waste, neighbors have begun the required petition process to
rename the small South Platte riverside park known as Pasquinel’s
Landing for Rev. Deb Spaar Sanchez.
DEB SANCHEZ WAS A TIRELESS ADVOCATE FOR THE OVERLAND NEIGHBORHOOD until her death in 2008. Supporters are asking Denver Parks and Recreation to rename a local park in her name to honor the many contributions she made to the health and well-being of her community.
$1.8 million in
compensation for environmental damage from Shattuck waste will soon fund
habitat improvements near the park.
Deb’s work on the historic EPA Superfund
cleanup began in the late 1980s and continued until the agency’s final
five-year review declared the site clean in 2006. At the time of her death from
cancer in 2008 the 5.9-acre parcel at 1805 S. Bannock St., home to Shattuck
Chemical from 1917-1984, was not only free of contamination but was slated for
development by new owner, Jon Cook.
Had efforts to force removal of the waste
not been successful, south Denver would have hosted the country’s first urban
radioactive waste dump. Instead, due in part to Deb’s heroic contributions,
Shattuck became the country’s first and only completed Superfund “remedy” to
have been declared unsafe and completely replaced by a more responsible
solution. Over 250,000 tons of toxic waste on the site was originally covered
over by EPA with dirt and a massive concrete cap.
Throughout the 1990s, leaders from Mayor
Webb to Representative DeGette, Senator Allard, Governor Owens and Secretary
Salazar were embroiled in the struggle for removal of the dump; all were
familiar with and fond of Deb. When Deb died, dignitaries from as far away as
Washington attended the service in her childhood church (where she had just
been ordained: she’d planned to make the rest of her life one of service).
In the late ’90s, as public opinion became
impossible to ignore, EPA instituted a “Dialogue Process” with city, state, and
federal representatives and counsel for Citigroup (who now owned the waste by
virtue of a string of mergers). Deb was one of two community representatives at
the crowded table.
During an early session she spoke slowly and
at some length of her personal concerns, her sense of injustice, and her fears
for her son, Lucas. At the session’s conclusion the chief investigator for the
EPA Ombudsman’s office said that in 20 years of sitting through similar
meetings he had never seen a room quiet and hold still as it had for Deb’s
sharing.
Denver’s Department of Parks and Recreation
requires the renaming of a park to begin with submittal of a two-to-three
sentence summary of the case – no easy task when 20 years of activism and
personal sacrifice is the story being told. In compliance with that guideline,
here is why Deb Spaar Sanchez Park is such a good
idea:
For nearly the last 20 years of her life the
Rev. Deb Sanchez, a Denver native, worked to assure that Denver’s radioactive
Shattuck Superfund Site, visible from her kitchen window, would be cleaned up
and restored to usefulness. At the center of every stage in the story of the
only Superfund “remedy” ever overturned for a more protective solution, Deb
engaged all the activists, the scientists, the elected officials and key agency
personnel, even the corporate higher-ups arguing to leave the waste in Denver,
treating all with respect – blessing meeting spaces and feeding the
negotiators – but speaking her truth undaunted. The small park where her
family played, three blocks from her home (named on a whim for a fictional
character with no Denver significance), Pasquinel’s
Landing should be renamed Deb Spaar Sanchez Park in
honor of a life of service saving this city from thousands of years of
radioactive blight.
As it happens, though, even now there is one
more Shattuck shoe to drop. In the waning days of the proceedings, Citigroup
was successfully sued by the State of Colorado for damage caused to nearby
groundwater. A community advisory process proposed use of the Natural Resource
Damage Assessment won by the state, now amounting to $1.8 million, for Platte
River habitat improvements to be undertaken by the Greenway Foundation. On
October 13, 2011 the state’s trustees accepted the arrangement that state
experts, community representatives and the Greenway’s Jeff Shoemaker had
hammered out.
The natural resource projects will be part
of a sweeping list of improvements the Greenway Foundation has planned with
agency and community involvement over the last few years. The Shattuck
assessment has already acted as seed money for matching fund development. A
portion of the restoration work will be in and near what will come to be known
as “Deb Spaar Sanchez Park,” rounding out a quarter
century of environmental advocacy in south Denver. |
