Neighbors Unhappy with Superfund Cleanup

By: Nathan Lamb

A plan to corral contaminants at an old wood treatment plant has been approved by federal regulators, but the solution is unpopular with neighbors, according to this story from the Gainesville Sun.

The Koppers wood treatment plant operated from 1919 to 2009, but soil and groundwater contamination at the 90-acre site landed the Gainesville business on the federal Superfund cleanup list in 1984. The contaminants include the carcinogen dioxin, which has been found in soil at the site and neighboring properties.

According to the EPA, the contamination stemmed from waste handling practices at the wood plant.

Recently approved by a federal judge, the cleanup plan calls for excavating the contaminated soil from at least 66 neighboring properties and putting it into a sealed underground containment area at the old wood plant at the 200 block of Northwest 23rd Avenue.

Unhappy about the plan to consolidate the contaminants at the old wood plant, the community submitted roughly 80 pages of comments on the issue, suggesting everything from relocation of the neighbors to concerns the disposal site could eventually leak into a nearby aquifer.

Officials charged with reviewing the plan say there's "little risk" to the aquifer from the sealed disposal site, adding the containment measures will be sufficient to protect public health.

Gainesville is approximately 110 miles northwest of Orlando and has a population of roughly 125,000 people.

Eastern Seaboard Superfund Sites Spread Worries in Wake of Sandy

By: Duane Craig
Wherever Hurricane Sandy traveled over land and along waterfronts, the risks of all types of contamination increased. From every minor little spill to major stockpiles of contaminated land waiting for shipment to disposal facilities, the possibility increased dramatically for their contaminated payloads to be dislodged and spread around. But perhaps the potential largest threats came from Superfund sites in New Jersey and New York.

Residents in Brooklyn, N.Y. with properties near Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal take great precautions as they clean up their properties, wearing masks and gloves, according to this article. That’s because the nearby Superfund sites, in the process of cleanup, still harbor a rich array of heavy metals and other serious environmental contaminants. The Environmental Protection Agency has so far given the sites passing grades in terms of potential effects on the health and lives of neighbors, however a disturbing trend of sewage contamination has no doubt added to the cleanup complexities. That sewage came from sewage treatment plants that were damaged or that lost power during the storm.

In New Jersey, with 111 Superfund sites - the most of any state, according to this EPA list - residents and cleanup crews may face bigger challenges. For example, the Rarity Bay Slag Superfund site released large enough quantities of lead onto the surrounding ground to warrant warnings being placed at a nearby playground. But even modern facilities, especially those handling petrochemicals, were damaged by the storm.

New Jersey has a concentration of petroleum industries and facilities. In one case, the storm tipped a fuel storage tank, causing it to spill more than 350,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the navigation channel between New Jersey and Staten Island. At a Kinder Morgan terminal, flooding water caused an empty tank to collide with one filled with biodiesel. The spill entered a nearby waterway, according to this report. Sampling and testing continue throughout the area affected by the storm surge.

North Birmingham Residents Still Waiting for Cleanup

By: Duane Craig

Birmingham, Ala., has had its share of industrial activity over the centuries, and now it is wrestling with soil, water and air contamination affecting at least three residential areas, according to Environmental Protection Agency documents

Residents in Collegeville, Harriman Park and Fairmont say the pending Superfund announcement by the EPA has taken far too long, and contamination has claimed more than its fair share of family members there, according to a report at cbs42.com. One resident claims to have lost a daughter, mother, sister and sister-in-law to cancer, and has another daughter who also has cancer.

According to the EPA, the agency may never finally determine all sources of the chemicals and contamination found in the soil samples in this area of northern Birmingham. Over the years, however, one company has figured prominently in the pollution discussion, and it entered into an administrative order of consent with the EPA in 1989. The company was supposed to assess potential contamination both on and off the site of its operations facility.

The company, known throughout EPA documents as Walter Coke, is one of a long line of companies that potentially contributed to Birmingham’s contamination. Starting out as the Sloss Furnace Company in 1881 as the operator of two blast furnaces, it became Sloss Iron and Steel Company in 1887. In 1899, when the then-named Sloss Sheffield Steel and Iron Company went public, it was making coke in beehive ovens. By 1920, the company was operating 120 coke ovens and did so until 1952, when it merged with U.S. Pipe and Foundry Company. That company was then purchased by Jim Walter Corp. in 1969, and in 1987 it became the Sloss Industries Corporation under the newly renamed Walter Industries, Inc. Eventually, Sloss became Walter Coke, and it is one of five companies making up Walter Energy today. Walter Energy is in coal, minerals, natural gas and coke.

The primary contaminants of concern are arsenic and polycyclic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, the most widespread of the two. According to sampling reports, Collegeville had 19 samples that were at or above the cleanup level for PAHs. Harriman Park had five at or above cleanup level, and Fairmont had two, including one school. Affected schools included Hudson (now demolished), Riggins Alternative and the former Carver High.

So far, assessment and cleanup of the contaminants has fallen under the Resource and Recovery Conservation Act. However there is little record of much happening in either area between 1989 and 2009, when sampling finally began in earnest. If the site gets moved under the Superfund program, some have suggested the net will widen to find more potentially responsible parties.

Asheville's Superfund Site Seeks Millions From PRPs

By: Duane Craig

The Environmental Protection Agency has billed two potentially responsible parties $6.5 million to cover the agency's costs to date in remediating the CTS of Asheville National Priorities Superfund site at 235 Mills Gap Road in Asheville N.C., according to an article in the Citizen-Times.

The site is widely contaminated with solvents such as trichloroethylene, or TCE, and residents have linked the contamination to cases of cancer in children. The EPA is currently monitoring 105 private water wells in the area, and in the past the agency paid to connect residents to municipal water when a spring and five private water wells turned out to be contaminated with not only TCE but also petroleum compounds, according to the EPA's report on the site.

Ashville Superfund site still contaminated with trichloroethylene

Residents are tired of the time it has taken to get cleanup actions started, and they welcomed the news of the EPA's latest efforts to get the two companies involved to pay up. Contamination is expected to lie below a 79,000-square-foot deteriorating building that is used by gangs, drug dealers and their users. The EPA has also been conducting vapor intrusion assessments and has been pressuring the responsible parties to plan and implement remediation tactics. A soil vapor extraction operation has so far removed 6,000 pounds of solvents from soils just above the water table.

Abilene Looks into Sidestepping Potential Contamination

By: Duane Craig

Abilene, Texas, is eyeing the possibility of sidestepping its potential current environmental issues by adopting a municipal setting designation for its downtown area, according to this report at KTXS.com. City leaders recognize that after years of dry cleaning and automotive businesses being located there and the years of road construction activities, the groundwater is likely contaminated.

If there is contamination, the extent is not known, and some in the city would rather not know. Instead, they’d like to just get on with attracting new business. Part of that plan may include designating the area as one where people can’t use the groundwater for potable purposes if it is within the top 150 feet of soil. It also means that interested businesses wouldn’t have to do any cleanups related to water. They would, however, have to address “any other kinds of contamination.” The state’s environmental commission would have to approve the designation and terms the city sets forth.

Abilene’s original Town North area includes streets roughly bounded by U.S. Business Route 83, College Drive, Beech Street and South Seventh Street.

Responsible Parties in Omega Superfund Site May Be on the Hook for $70 million

By: Duane Craig

The Omega Chemical Corporation Superfund site in Whittier, California, needs $70 million to cleanup the volatile organic compounds in the ground water, according to a recent report at 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio. The plume of contamination extends 4.5 miles in a southwesterly direction, at least to Los Nietos Road.

Cleanup of the soil and above-ground area began in 1995. More than 100 potentially responsible parties banded together to "remove and treat 3,000 drums of hazardous waste, 60 cubic yards of hardened resin material, hundreds of empty contaminated drums, numerous cylinders and various other smaller containers." The group also emptied two rainwater sumps and four evaporators. It cleaned two cooling towers, removed 67 refrigerant gas cylinders and disposed of 40,000 gallons of contaminated liquids, according to the history of the site kept by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Whittier, Ca needs $70 million to cleanup superfund site

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control had been alerted to problems at the business in the 1980s, and during the 1990s, the department had tried unsuccessfully to get the operators of the facility to remove wastes and clean up the site. The business recycled refrigerants and solvents from 1976 to 1991. Spills and leaks led to soil contamination with tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, trichloroethylene, or TCE, Freons 11 and 113 and other contaminants. One of the operable units managed by the EPA is addressing vapor intrusion in several buildings along the perimeter of the Omega property, while the other two operable units focus on the ground water contamination.

New Hampshire Town Struggles With Legacy Landfill

By: Duane Craig

A necessity of a consumer-driven economic system is dumps, or as they are now called, landfills. In more environmentally-unenlightened times stuff was just taken out to a rural area and dropped off. When dumps came into vogue they were situated on land that had natural hollows where the debris could be dumped.

Old landfills growing a problem

Eventually, people started noticing odors and wild animal populations increasing so dumps were turned into landfills with every day's deposits being covered up before nightfall. Municipalities started owning and managing landfills, much to their chagrin later, as in the case of the city of Dover, New Hampshire.

Dover has been grappling with what to do with its old landfill for 30 years and the story is a fascinating study in trying to find the right answer without having to spend too much. The problems began when water flowing below the sleeping landfill started to contaminate wells on its perimeter. Several years later the city figured it would go for Superfund status and have the federal government fund the cleanup. That was a bright spot until everybody found out the city was named one of the potentially responsible parties, or PRPs, and would have to cough up something toward the cleanup effort. There is much more to this story written in an easily understandable account at Foster's.com website.

Ignorance Serves as Path to Unintentional Contamination

By: Duane Craig

There are few better examples of how ignorance enables widespread contamination than a tale about Monsanto, National Cash Register Company, the paper industry and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. This story started in 1957 and is still playing out across the country. Recently, new evidence of PCB contamination on the rise comes from Portage Creek in Kalamazoo, Michigan, according to this report in MLive.com.

PCB contamination on the rise in Kalamazoo

Four paper mills operated in that area, and today an 80-mile stretch of the river is part of the Superfund cleanup known as the Kalamazoo River Project, according to this background paper from the Environmental Protection Agency.

There are nine places along Portage Creek where PCB levels have increased from their 1993 level of 79 parts per million to 590 parts per million, and those particular places are known as hot spots. It is thought that erosion over the years moved the material and concentrated it in those hot spots. The cleanup will focus on about two miles of the creek and will involve a small portion of Axtell Creek from John Street to Portage Creek as well. The work area begins at Alcott Street and continues to where the creek meets the Kalamazoo River at E. Michigan Avenue.

In 1966, PCBs showed up in Swedish fish and wildlife so in 1967 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started testing this country's food supply for PCBs and found them in fish, eggs, milk, poultry, grain and cereal. Apparently, a particular type of packaging called greyboard, used to package cereal, had the highest concentrations of 433 parts per million. The greyboard was widely being made from recycled carbonless copy paper and carbonless paper was being made by the National Cash Register Company using a Monsanto product called Arochlor 1242. Archlor 1242 contained a cocktail of PCBs with 42 percent chlorine, according to this study. While NCR was the sole marketer of the carbonless copy paper it also licensed other paper mills in Wisconsin to make the product.

But, there was also another way PCBs were entering the environment from the paper industry. Paper mills in general were found to have PCBs higher than background levels in their wastewater and the culprit, once again, was carbonless paper. In 1977 there were nearly 800 paper mills using recycled wastepaper and those mills were using about 12,000 gallons of water to create each ton of paper. That water was flowing out to the rivers and streams or being disposed of as sludge in landfills. It was finally determined the PCBs were concentrating more in solids than they were in water, so as water carried the PCB-laden solids the solids were often distributed in clumps as sediment. Where that happened the PCB concentrations rose rapidly.

NCR stopped making the carbonless paper in 1971, but forty years later the world is still dealing with the legacy of unintentional contamination born from ignorance.

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.

UC Davis Addresses Leftover Contamination Below Animal Research Facility

by: Duane Craig

University of California, Davis Campus

Superfund Cleanup at UC Davis

A Superfund site with shared responsibility between the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of California Davis campus enters a new phase of the cleanup--the portion the university is responsible for--and it may be getting quite costly.
The university tested the effects of radiation on beagles, the animal research industry’s canine workhorse. According to this article in The Sacramento Bee, about 800 beagles endured various assaults by radioactive contamination before being dispatched. Twenty years ago their remains were hauled away along with toxic dog waste and contaminated gravel as the first part of the site cleanup. Now, the university must clean up waste pits where it disposed of a wide range of unwanted items, including perhaps an anesthetic.
The anesthesia of choice for the beagle experiments was chloroform, and a plume of that has migrated offsite and is contaminating soil and groundwater below nearby agricultural land. Always the intrepid experimenters, university researchers are using a pilot project to get rid of the chloroform. Air is being pumped into the ground to force the chloroform out of the soil and into a pipe that carries it into the air.
The Energy Department spent decades and millions of dollars on the first phase of this cleanup. But this next part has an amazingly wide potential cost, anywhere from $6 million to $100 million.

EPA Flags 2 Contaminated Sites in Seminole County, FL

September 28, 2010 - Two business properties in Central Florida, both in Seminole County, were placed Monday on the federal government's list of the nation's most dangerously polluted sites.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it added to its Superfund cleanup program a longtime dry cleaners in a historic part of downtown Sanford and an industrial property near Longwood once used by General Dynamics Corp. and other companies. Toxic industrial chemicals have found their way underground at both locations, though they pose no immediate health risks, officials in the EPA's Atlanta office said.

Central Florida has relatively few properties listed as Superfund sites, a designation many communities seek to avoid because it tends to lower nearby property values or harm a neighborhood's reputation.

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NYC's Newtown Creek Declared Superfund Site

September 27, 2010 - The Environmental Protection Agency today declared toxic Newtown Creek a federal Superfund site after a series of soil and water samples were tested over a three-month period in 2009. Superfund sites are former industrial areas so polluted they are determined to need federal funding for cleanup. The creek, which serves as the border between Queens and Brooklyn, joins the Superfund list as one of seven added today by the EPA.

Testing revealed the presence of pesticides, metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). PCBs are thought to cause a range of health issues in humans, and VOCs can cause respiratory, allergic, or immune problems.

Citing the toxic site as one of the most polluted water bodies in the country, officials including local Congress members Anthony Weiner and Nydia Velazquez pushed the EPA to test the waterway, which flows partly under the north end of Bushwick as English Kills.

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EPA Adds Vienna, MO Wells Near Abandoned Hat Factory to Superfund List

September 27, 2010 - The Environmental Protection Agency announced this morning that Vienna, Mo. public drinking wells near an old hat factory were among seven new additions to the Superfund National Priorities List.

The so-called Vienna Wells site includes three contaminated public wells near the suspected source, the former Langenberg Hat Factory.

Vienna is in Maries County on Rt. 63 95 miles southwest of St. Louis.

Missouri's Department of Natural Resources referred the site to the EPA after determining that the old hat manufacturer was a suspected source of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) contamination.

PCE is a chemical used in dry cleaning and textile production. The chemical is known to cause health problems, particularly in studies of dry cleaning workers.

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City, CVS Sparring With State Over Bozeman, MT Superfund Site

September 14, 2010 - Twenty-one years after perchloroethene, a dry-cleaning fluid and suspected carcinogen, was discovered under the Hastings Shopping Center, there still isn't a plan to clean it up.

The city of Bozeman and CVS Pharmacy are responsible for cleaning up the Superfund site, dubbed the Bozeman Solvent Site. But the two say a state regulatory agency overseeing the remediation is dragging its heels. And they're prepared to take the state to court if the process doesn't speed up.

"The city and CVS will no longer accept management behavior from the (Montana Department of Environmental Quality,) which does nothing more than provide lengthy delays and abusive, arbitrary demands, while imposing unreasonable costs upon the taxpayers of the city of Bozeman and CVS," states an Aug. 31 letter to MDEQ from attorneys representing the city and CVS.

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Tainted Wells Anger WI Residents

September 6, 2010 - Dozens of private wells near the Oak Creek coal-fired power plant have elevated levels of a metal called molybdenum, and We Energies is providing some homeowners in the area with bottled water for drinking and cooking.

An investigation by the state Department of Natural Resources has not determined the source of the metal, which is considered a health risk when consumed at high levels.

The We Energies plant in Oak Creek is a potential source of molybdenum, but environmental regulators are also investigating a longtime landfill in Caledonia, west of the tainted wells, that is now a Superfund site.

The Milwaukee utility said its environmental consultant has concluded that its power plant is not the source of the contamination, but environmental groups dispute that. The DNR has not pinpointed a source.

Caught in the mess are homeowners, some of whom have lived in the area for decades. Unable to drink their water, and concerned about the impact of the problem on their property values, they wait for an answer.

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Brookhurst, MT Cleanup ‘Nearing Completion’

September 2, 2010 - A two-decade effort to address groundwater contamination at the Brookhurst subdivision near Casper could enter its final stage this fall.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed certain restrictions for two neighboring industrial properties it deemed responsible for the contamination. If those proposals go through, the EPA hopes to begin removing parts of the site from the federal Superfund list later this year.

“We are not at the total end, but we are nearing completion,” said EPA Remedial Project Manager Frances Costanzi. “The great majority of the work has been completed.”

The area received federal Superfund designation in 1990, four years after tests revealed pollution inside drinking-water wells in the Brookhurst subdivision east of Casper. Authorities tied the contamination to a pair of groundwater plumes that originated from the nearby Kinder Morgan gas compression plant and Dow Chemical/Dowell Schlumberger oil field services facility.

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EPA Schedules Public Hearing on Edgewater NJ Superfund Site

August 24, 2010 - Federal environmental officials have agreed to take more public comments on a plan to contain and cap contamination at an Edgewater Superfund site, but leave the clean-up to some future redeveloper.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approach to the old Quanta Resources Industrial site drew criticism from environmentalists as soon as it was released.

In response, the EPA has scheduled another public hearing at 7 p.m. on Sept. 13 at the American Legion Post, 1165 River Road.

New Jersey closed the Quanta site in 1981, citing hazards from more than a century of industrial pollution. Located along the Hudson River at the intersection of River and Gorge roads, the 24-acre property was a coal tar facility, then a waste oil terminal with a nearby chemical plant.

Even before heavy industrial operations began in the wake of the Civil War, industrial fill containing what are now known pollutants was used to turn marshes along the Hudson into suitable sites for piers, rail lines and factories.

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EPA Releases Plan For Toxic Mountain View CA Site

August 23, 2010 - The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a plan last week to prevent toxic vapors from rising into a Mountain View neighborhood's homes and businesses.

Under the plans signed by the EPA on Aug. 16, fans or blower systems may be installed underneath the foundations of buildings in the "MEW" Superfund site to remove the vapors.

The MEW site -- bordered by E. Middlefield Road, Ellis Street, North Whisman Road and Moffett Field -- was once home to industrial companies and government agencies such as the Navy. They used chemicals in their operations that remain in the groundwater, primarily the solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE. The site now contains more than 70 commercial buildings and 100 residences.

Efforts to clean up the groundwater are ongoing, but the EPA discovered several years ago that the toxins were also rising into the air inside the buildings. While the agency determined there were no immediate health risks, the vapors could present a long-term problem.

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Agency: Treat Valmont PA Groundwater

August 25, 2010 - A federal agency recommends treating contaminated water below ground at the Valmont Industrial Park rather than pumping it to the surface and then removing a carcinogen.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said underground treatment will save money and time in the cleanup of the cancer-causing chemical trichloroethylene or TCE. A study done during the past two years at the site shows that below-ground treatment can reduce levels of TCE.

Tests found TCE leaking into soil and groundwater from the former Chromatex No. 2 plant at Valmont in West Hazleton 23 years ago. Chromatex used TCE to attach stain repellent to upholstery and rugs. The company stored TCE in two tanks in the plant and caught spills in an underground tank, where a broken pipe was discovered.

Since the discovery, authorities installed water lines so people living near the plant wouldn't drink or bathe from contaminated wells. Contractors excavated 18,000 tons of contaminated soil and installed systems to vent 17 homes containing fumes of TCE. In 2001, the agency placed the site on its Superfund list, a register of polluted areas given national priority for cleanup.

Now the agency proposed a plan to treat the contaminated groundwater.

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Superfund Cleanup in Idaho Draws Local Opposition

August 13, 2010 - People who live around a toxic former silver mining complex in Idaho have a message for federal environmental officials who want to expand a lengthy cleanup effort: Go home, your help is no longer wanted.

Despite the government's best intentions, some locals think a prolonged federal presence will scare away businesses by sending a message that the Silver Valley is a dangerous place to live. Residents and politicians in this conservative region also believe it's a waste of taxpayer dollars and that the real intention of the government is to shut down the remaining mines.

"They've got their environmental science degree from some place like Berkeley and they drive their Prius to the back hills of Idaho and here are a bunch of miners and they want to do what they think is best for us," said attorney James McMillan.

The Environmental Protection Agency has spent nearly 20 years cleaning up the Superfund site in Kellogg that was once one of the most-polluted places in the country, with arsenic and lead stripping the hillsides of vegetation and poisoning the blood of children.

The cleanup efforts have greened the mountains and improved human health, although pollution still exists. Some streams and rivers are so polluted that stretches have no aquatic life, and migrating swans that land on them die.

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