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EPA adds one Delaware site to Superfund list while proposing another site

Environmental Protection Agency

A site in Georgetown is added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund National Priorities List while a second site in New Castle could join it.

The Georgetown North Groundwater site is a groundwater plume, an area polluted with PCE and its breakdown products. PCE is a chemical used in commercial and industrial operations like dry cleaning.

EPA considers PCE a likely cancer-causing chemical, and the area is about one square-mile beneath commercial and residential areas within Georgetown.

The EPA does say the public drinking water in Georgetown does meet state and federal standards after treatment, but two of the three public wells have PCE contamination exceeding state and federal maximum contaminant levels.

One additional industrial well is also impacted, and if the contaminated groundwater plume is not addressed it may impact water quality.

Meanwhile, the EPA proposes adding East Basin Road Groundwater in New Castle to the Superfund list.

That site consists of groundwater plumes affecting about a 5,000-acre area in New Castle.

Contaminants were discovered in public drinking water in 1985, and in 2013 PFAS chemicals were found in several public drinking water wells in the area.

The contamination is spreading, impacting 11 drinking water wells, and treatment systems have been installed to treat the water which currently meets state and federal standards.

Joe brings over 20 years of experience in news and radio to Delaware Public Media and the All Things Considered host position. He joined DPM in November 2019 as a reporter and fill-in ATC host after six years as a reporter and anchor at commercial radio stations in New Castle and Sussex Counties.