Mississippi's Chemfax Site Set for Next Round of Cleanup

By: Duane Craig

Through the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. taxpayers helped Gulfport, Miss., complete an emergency cleanup of the Chemfax industrial site at Three Rivers and Creosote roads. The bill was about $1.5 million, according to this report at SunHerald.com.

Now, the cleanup needs to be taken to the next level to prevent contamination from reaching Bernard Bayou, and Mississippi will have to carry the financial ball from here to completion. The state says it is waiting for a final cleanup plan before determining the funding.

The work is estimated to include removing 18,000 cubic feet of soil contaminated with base neutral acids, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. That requires digging down from 4 to 10 feet at a cost of about $2.5 million. After the contaminants are removed, the groundwater will have to be monitored for 100 years.

Benzene in air 180 times EPA health-based benchmark

Chemfax made petroleum hydrocarbon resins using a paraffin wax blending process. Water used in the process was stored in a pond, and the pond had an overflow drain going to a drainage ditch. Air sampling in 1990 turned up high levels of "benzene, toluene, xylenes, ethyl benzene, and styrene. The concentrations of benzene detected in the air were over 180 times EPA's health-based benchmarks. Other contaminants were also found in air samples significantly above upwind sample concentrations," according to EPA documents.

Problems Arise With Southern Cap On Burlington's Pine Street Canal

By: Duane Craig

Barges in the Pine Street Superfund Site.

Pine Street Canal Superfund site still active.

Old, cleaned up or contained contamination sometimes resurfaces to create new problems. The Pine Street Canal in Burlington, Vermont, was once home to a coal gassification plant. For almost 60 years "plant wastewaters and residual oil and wood chips saturated with organic compounds were directly discharged or disposed of in the Pine Street Canal wetland.
During the 1960s and 1970s oily material seeping to the surface alerted authorities and tests showed high levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, tuolene, xylenes and other volatile organic compounds related to coal tar. At that time the concern was these contaminants would make their way into Lake Champlain, the community's source of drinking water, according o the EPA's background on the site.
Site wide cleanup activities followed emergency cleanup efforts and the record of decision listed capping and sealing contaminated sediment in the canal, the turning basin and adjacent wetlands. Administrative controls rounded out the plan. By 2009 though, the original cap was not holding back seepage of the contaminants at the canal's south end so a second cap was proposed. That cap will also fill up, so at the same time passive recovery wells need to be drilled to catch contaminates that can be pumped and treated.
According to a report in Bloomberg Bussinessweek, the EPA is amending its plan to cap the southern end of the canal by also adding an underground vertical barrier and it is looking for public comments on that new plan. This cleanup started in 1985, nearly 20 years after the contamination was discovered.

EPA Releases Results of Wyoming Water Well Testing

August 31, 2010 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigating drinking water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming, found benzene and methane in wells and in groundwater, agency officials said.

At a community meeting with well owners, EPA officials revealed Tuesday they found low levels of petroleum compounds in 17 of 19 drinking water wells sampled, and that nearby shallow groundwater was contaminated with high levels of petroleum compounds such as benzene, according to the report.

The affected well owners were advised not to drink the water at the recommendation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and told to use alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking, agency officials said.

Meanwhile, the EPA is working with various government partners and EnCana, a natural gas company, to provide affected residents with water and to address potential sources of the contamination, agency officials said.

The study included sampling 21 domestic wells within the area of concern, two municipal wells, plus sediment and water from a nearby creek. The EPA also sampled groundwater and soil from pit remediation sites, and produced water and condensate from five production wells operated by the primary natural gas operator in the area, agency officials said.

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