‘This is our home;’ Some still not satisfied after city holds town hall over water quality concerns

PIQUA — Lithium-ion battery testing is no longer happening in Piqua but concerns about it aren’t going away.

Wednesday night the city of Piqua gave the community a chance to take their questions directly to leaders, but some are still not satisfied.

At the community town hall, tables were set up for different state, county, and local agencies.

News Center 7, along with other local media, was restricted to the back of the venue and leaders did not give interviews.

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The city said the battery burning started in 2018 to help with training and research for firefighters.

The city claimed from 2018 to September of this year the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Regional Air Pollution Control Agency reviewed the battery-burning operations.

In September, the state EPA and RAPCA inspected the site after getting complaints from residents about air emissions and water contamination.

The Ohio EPA found the third party doing the battery testing on-site violated its air permit.

Later in September that third party stopped the battery burning and agreed to leave the site by the week of Thanksgiving.

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Melanie Walker lives in Piqua. She blames the company that did the burning.

“They lied to the public and to the city commissioners. I don’t feel that the city can be held accountable for everything that they’re wanting them to be held for right now,” Walker said.

Some have wondered how the burning impacted water quality.

This week the city put out a statement saying “test results from the city’s drinking water plant confirm its acceptable for drinking, bathing, cooking and results from source water in the area show no concerning levels of contamination.”

“This is our home. This is my kid,” Mary Simmons of Piqua said.

Debbie Stein is a lifelong resident.

“My biggest question that I want to ask or let them know about is how did the EPA and the city of Piqua fail us so badly? How did they not do inspections of that site? And what are they going to do to remedy that?” Stein said.

The Ohio EPA representative at Wednesday’s town hall said they were not permitted to give interviews.

The Ohio EPA and Piqua will now do soil sampling and groundwater testing.

The state EPA will also do air modeling to determine if any contamination has happened.

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