We have written several posts on B.F. Goodrich’s Rialto perchlorate or “rocket-fuel-site” in western San Bernardino County, California.  EPA added the Rialto site to the Superfund National Priorities List, the federal program that cleans up the nation’s uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. 

The site is called the rocket fuel site because B.F. Goodrich site has been used to store, test and manufacture munitions, rocket motors, and pyrotechnics by the government and businesses since the 1940s. The area’s groundwater is grossly contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchlorate, forcing the closure of public drinking water supply wells in the communities of Rialto and Colton. 

Since 2002, the EPA and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board have worked to investigate and clean up the B.F. Goodrich site. Apparently, Goodrich was not moving fast enough on the groundwater pollution issues to suit EPA.

In 2006, investigation and cleanup efforts stalled when the potentially responsible parties presented legal challenges to state cleanup efforts. EPA has since spent more than $3 million to complete required soil and groundwater testing. As a result of that testing, EPA expects to release a plan to begin cleanup at a portion of the site later this year.  Goodrich and its insurers will eventually fund that cleanup and pay back EPA for its consultants’ work, as well as its oversight costs.

Trichloroethylene, or TCE, is a metal cleaning solvent. Drinking or breathing high levels of trichloroethylene may cause damage to the nervous system, liver and lungs. Perchlorate is an ingredient in solid rocket propellant and many pyrotechnics, and may affect the thyroid gland.

For more information on the BF Goodrich Superfund site, visit: http://www.epa.gov/region09/bfgoodrich

For the Federal Register notice and supporting documents, please visit: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/current.htm

Cleanup activities at the Kentucky Wood Preserving Site in Winchester, Ky., resumed on August 17, 2009, following a January 2009 agreement between EPA and CSX Transportation Inc. (CSXT) to have CSXT perform the remaining cleanup work necessary at the site to protect human health and the environment.

The Kentucky Wood Preserving site is located at 200 Magnolia Street in Winchester, Ky., where wood products were formerly pressure treated by copper chromated arsenate (CCA). EPA and the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection (KDEP) conducted a site evaluation at the facility in April 2007.

As a result of the evaluation, EPA determined that a time-critical removal action was necessary and began cleanup activities in July 2007. EPA’s cleanup work was completed in October 2008 and included off-site treatment and disposal of more than 60,000 gallons of CCA solutions and 1,200 tons of hazardous waste solids. An additional 2,000 tons of arsenic-contaminated soils and debris were also removed and disposed of, the majority of which was from a residential cleanup at a property adjoining the site. EPA spent a total of approximately $1.6 million for the cleanup.

CSXT’s contractors are performing the current removal activities under EPA oversight. Current operations involve removal of equipment and other material left on-site when Kentucky Wood Preserving abandoned the site in 2006, as well as the demolition of all existing structures. The scope of work includes solidification of arsenic-contaminated soils on-site.

The solidification process will prevent leaching of arsenic into surface water and groundwater and eliminate the potential for off-site migration of contaminants. Completion of removal activities required by EPA is targeted for the end of 2009. Cleanup of additional off-site areas by KDEP is also planned to be completed by the end of the year.

Following completion of on-site construction work, CSXT will apply for a restrictive covenant with KDEP to ensure that future land use is compatible with environmental conditions at the site.

Additional information about the site can be found at http://www.epaosc.net/kywood.

Kentucky is home to 7 high hazard coal ash ponds.

In response to an EPA information request on units handling wet or slurried coal combustion residues (“CCRs”), electric utilities have so far identified a total of 427 units managing slurried CCRs to EPA.

Forty-four (44) of these units at 26 different locations have been assigned a high hazard potential rating, using the criteria developed by the National Dam Safety Program for the National Inventory of Dams. Hazard potential ratings are generally assigned by the State Dam Safety officials.  The 44 sites were spread across 10 states as follows:

North Carolina, 12 (Belmont, Walnut Cove, Spencer, Eden, Mount Holy, Terrell and Arden).
Arizona, 9 (Cochise, Joseph City).
Kentucky, 7 (Louisa, Harrodsburg, Ghent and Louisville).
Ohio, 6 (Waterford, Brilliant and Cheshire).
West Virginia, 4 (Willow Island, St. Albans, Moundsville, New Haven).
Illinois, 2 (Havana, Alton).
Indiana, 1 (Lawrenceburg).
Pennsylvania, 1 (Shippingport).
Georgia, 1 (Milledgeville).
Montana, 1 (Colstrip).

The infamous TVA coal ash dam in Kingston, TN is not included on the list. The “high hazard” label was self-assigned.  TVA apparently did not consider its coal ash dam at Kingston quite hazardous enough to make the grade.  It makes you wonder whether EPA will actually look into the validity of the information provided to the agency in response to the information request.

CCRs consist of fly ash, bottom ash, coal slag, and flue gas desulfurization (FGD) residue. CCRs contain a broad range of metals, for example, arsenic, selenium, cadmium, lead, and mercury, but the concentrations of these are generally low.   On the other hand, the overall volume of these wastes is enormous.  If not properly managed, (for example, in lined units), CCRs may cause a risk to human health and the environment and, in fact, EPA has documented cases of environmental damage.

The U.S. EPA has identified the hardrock mining industry as its priority for developing financial assurance requirements. Financial assurance requirements help ensure that owners and operators of these facilities, not taxpayers, foot the bill for environmental cleanup.

These requirements will be developed under section 108(b) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, commonly called “Superfund.”  EPA plans to propose the rule by spring of 2011. The agency will publish a notice of this priority in the Federal Register, which is the first step toward developing the requirements.

The priority notice identifying hardrock mining also satisfies a court order issued by the United States District Court.

Financial assurance requirements can promote responsible environmental practices within industries.  Since Congress enacted Superfund in 1980, EPA has spent billions of dollars to clean up uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. 

EPA decided to develop financial responsibility requirements for classes of facilities within the hardrock mining industry before it did so for other types of facilities. This conclusion is based upon those facilities’ sheer size; the enormous quantities of waste and other materials exposed to the environment; the wide range of hazardous substances released to the environment; the number of active hardrock mining facilities; the extent of environmental contamination, including the number of sites identified by EPA as needing cleanup under Superfund’s National Priorities List; and government expenditures, projected clean-up costs, and corporate structure and bankruptcy potential.

Hardrock mining facilities include those that extract, beneficiate and process metals (e.g., copper, gold, iron, lead, magnesium, molybdenum, silver, uranium, and zinc) and non-metallic, non-fuel minerals (e.g., asbestos, gypsum, phosphate rock, and sulfur).

Coal mining facilities are not hardrock mining facilities and are not included in EPA’s priority notice.  

The agency plans to examine other industries outside of the hardrock mining industry that also may warrant the development of financial responsibility requirements under Superfund by the end of the year. EPA plans to examine, at a minimum, the following classes of facilities:  hazardous waste generators, hazardous waste recyclers, metal finishers, wood treatment facilities, and chemical manufacturers.

This list may be revised as the agency’s evaluation proceeds. EPA is scheduled to publish the notice addressing additional classes of facilities the agency plans to evaluate by December 2009.  At that time, the agency will solicit public comment. 

More information:  http://www.epa.gov/superfund/policy/financialresponsibility/index.html

A federal court jury sitting in Ashland, Kentucky ruled that chemical giant DuPont was guilty of gross negligence in a 2004 leak at its Wurtland plant that released clouds of sulfuric acid over large portions of Greenup County.  Wurtland is a city in Greenup County, Kentucky, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,049 at the 2000 census.  

The 10-member jury found in favor of the plaintiffs on Monday after deliberating for about three hours and 40 minutes.  The federal court jurors concluded the initial group was entitled to receive about $130,000 in compensatory damages from DuPont. 

Gross negligence is usually described as willful and wanton conduct that must be punished by the court to discourage such undesireable conduct from occurring in the future. Thus, the reason for the punitive damage award by the jury.

 Because of Dupont’s gross negligence, the jury awarded $1,130,000 in punitive damages.   DuPont will likely contest the jury award.

Prime Tanning Co., the former owner of a St. Joseph, Mo., tannery, is being sued over health concerns related to allegations that the plant’s sludge contained hexavalent chromium, a known human carcinogen.  

Prime Tanning apparently gave tons of the sludge to farmers to spread on their fields for use as fertilizer. As a result, sludge from the plant has been spread on thousands of acres of farmland in northwest Missouri since 1983

Lawsuits filed last month claim that the sludge contained hexavalent chromium.  The suit alleged a link between the sludge and brain tumors occurring in the area.  

In response to the lawsuit, Prime Tanning denies the link between the personal injuries alleged in the complaint and its sludge.  The company also denies the existence of hexavalent chromium in the plant’s sludge.  U.S. EPA is apparently testing the sludge to confirm the position of Prime Tanning.

Hexavalent chromium compounds are a group of chemical substances that contain the metallic element chromium in its positive-6 valence (hexavalent) state.

Chromium occurs in the environment primarily in two valence states, trivalent chromium and hexavalent chromium.  Chromium III is much less toxic than hexavalent chromium.  The respiratory tract is also the major target organ for chromium toxicity.

Indeed, according to research reports, hexavalent chromium will cause an increased risk of lung cancer. Other adverse health effects associated with hexavalent chromium exposure include dermal irritation, skin ulceration, allergic contact dermatitis, occupational asthma, nasal irritation and ulceration, perforated nasal septa, rhinitis, nosebleed, respiratory irritation, nasal cancer, sinus cancer, eye irritation and damage, perforated eardrums, kidney damage, liver damage, pulmonary congestion and edema, epigastric pain, and erosion and discoloration of the teeth.

Prime Tanning may to have regulatory problems arising from this mess in addition to defending the toxic tort lawsuits.  The company allegedly did not tell the state agency about its use of hexavalent chromium at the tanning plant in St. Joseph, Missouri.

 U.S. EPA is planning to hold a public meeting to discuss possible revisions to the Definition of Solid Waste (“DSW”) rule in response to an administrative petition asking the agency to reconsider and repeal the rule.  The rule became effective on December 29, 2008. The meeting is planned for the end of June, and a Federal Register notice with the details of the meeting will be published in May.

As promulgated, the DSW rule modified the regulations for recycling hazardous secondary materials to encourage the recycling of certain materials to help conserve resources. The rule includes conditions designed to ensure that the recycling of the materials is protective of human health and the environment.

The rule also takes into account a series of opinions in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on the meaning of the term “discard,” which forms the basis of the definition of solid waste.

Since publication of the DSW rule, the Sierra Club has raised concerns about the effectiveness and protectiveness of the rule and has requested EPA stay the rule in an administrative petition. In addition, the Sierra Club and the American Petroleum Institute have filed judicial petitions for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Various industry groups have also filed letters opposing the Sierra Club’s administrative petition.

EPA expects that stakeholders’ input at the public meeting will assist the agency in deciding whether to make revisions to the rule and how such revisions would further ensure that the rule appropriately and safely encourages resource conservation for those hazardous secondary materials that are conditionally excluded.

The Federal Register notice announcing the meeting will raise specific questions for consideration, particularly related to reclamation that is not under the control of the generator. Any revisions to the rule would be made through the full public rulemaking process.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued an administrative order to PPG Industries, requiring it to collect and treat contaminated water discharging unabated from the site containing decades-old waste from its former Ford City plant, and to restrict access to the site and to the section of the Allegheny River impacted by the discharge. DEP staff was contacted by Allegheny River Stewards to discuss the results of analytical field tests showed that the discharge from PPG dump site was raising the pH of the Allegheny River to unacceptably high levels.

The Allegheny River flows into the Ohio River.  The Ohio River supplies drinking water to many Kentucky residents, including almost all of those living in Northern Kentucky.

The PPG

PPG's old dump site is discharging alkaline wastewater into Allegheny River in Pennsylvania.

EPA announced groundbreaking for a water treatment facility that will remove perchlorate and other chemicals from groundwater near NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Superfund site.  Approximately 7,000 gallons per minute of perchlorate and volatile organic compounds will be removed from groundwater wells.  The treated groundwater will serve as drinking water for area residents. 

This move is quite a turnabout for NASA.  Three years ago, NASA released a study which concluded that the dumping of rocket fuel by the US Army some 50 years ago at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) did not cause pollution now making much of the city’s groundwater undrinkable.  Apparently NASA’s earlier study was somewhat erroneous because NASA is funding construction and operating costs of the treatment plant which NASA hopes to complete by 2010. The City of Pasadena will own and operate the plant

Approximately 120,840 people live within four miles of the site, and an estimated 68,000 people obtain drinking water from municipal wells within that area. Surrounding Pasadena water wells have been shut down due to perchlorate and volatile organic compounds contamination.

Perchlorate is a component of solid rocket fuel and certain types of fertilizers, and can affect the thyroid gland. Volatile organic compounds are used decades as industrial cleaning solvents, and can cause nose and throat discomfort, headache, allergic skin reaction, and liver, kidney, and central nervous system damage.

Perchlorate, a rocket fuel component pollutes nine of Pasadena’s 16 underground drinking wells, can affect function of the hormone-producing thyroid gland — important for a healthy metabolism in adults and essential to skeletal and nervous system development in infants and fetuses.

TVA's Kingston Station is home of $800 million fly ash sludge release.

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/coalashletter.htm