Texas Taps ARRA for Longview Cleanup

By: Duane Craig

Gregg County, Texas, has received almost $64 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to Window on State Government, and a portion of that is going toward cleaning up local environmental issues at Longview.

The now-bankrupt Garland Creosoting treated wood with creosote from 1960 to 1997 in Longview, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s update on the Superfund site. This is a triangular site that is roughly bounded by Garland Road, South Eastman Road and Estes Drive. The City of Longview now considers the property’s best use to be for high-intensity retail business.

Garland used six tanks to recycle wastes from its operations and then placed those wastes into unlined impoundments on the soil’s surface. Between 1985 and 1989, investigators installed 12 monitoring wells to track the previously discovered groundwater contaminated with creosote. Operators of the wells discovered a “dense non-aqueous phase liquid,” or DNAPL, contaminating the groundwater. Garland closed the impoundments, removed the water and capped them to prevent further migration of the sludge. Garland then operated a groundwater recovery and treatment system until 1997 when it declared bankruptcy.

Long-term recovery actions have been taken over by a contractor, and those operations of recovery and treatment of leachate are expected to continue for another 10 years.