The federal government’s Superfund program to clean up the worst contaminated sites in Delaware is undergoing changes as two projects are deemed no longer an environmental threat, while another is put forward as a possible new target for cleanup.
In recent weeks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed removing two Delaware sites from its National Priorities List of the most contaminated locations and adding one.
The addition would be the Georgetown North groundwater site where there is an underground water plume of about 1 square mile containing PCE, a solvent formerly used by two local dry cleaners. The plume contaminated two municipal water wells at levels that exceeded the EPA’s health limit for the chemical.
Although the ground water has been known to be contaminated since 1985, Georgetown’s drinking water meets state and federal health standards because the water is treated for PCE by the local water authority.
The last time PCE was detected there was in 2014, said Tim Turane, a spokesman for the Division of Public Health. The affected water-treatment system was shut, and replaced in 2017 with new technology that removes VOCs from the public water supply. Since 2017, there have been no exceedances of the regulatory limit, he said.
The Georgetown site has already been subject to a limited cleanup by Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The agency removed two underground storage tanks, one each at the sites of Georgetown Dry Cleaners and Thoro-Kleen Dry Cleaners.
But DNREC’s work didn’t address contamination of soil and ground water, and so further investigation and remediation is warranted, EPA said. It noted that the state agency asked the EPA to join the cleanup because of the complexity of the problem, and the greater federal resources that come with Superfund designation. The City of Georgetown also supports the Superfund proposal, the EPA said.
Michael Globetti, a spokesman for DNREC, said the agency’s work in Georgetown since the 1990s has focused on ensuring a safe drinking water supply. Now, it has concluded that the EPA’s resources are needed to fix the town’s ground water problem.
“It has become evident that additional technical and financial resources would be needed to restore the town’s groundwater,” Globetti said. “As EPA takes the lead for the Georgetown North Groundwater site through the possible NPL listing, they may need to reevaluate remedial actions by DNREC at source facilities.”
“Assuming EPA does not receive any new information that would make the site ineligible for the Superfund program, then EPA will likely finalize the listing."EPA spokesman David Sternberg
EPA classifies PCE as a likely carcinogen, and lists other effects including kidney dysfunction, respiratory irritation, and neurological problems.
Now that the site has been proposed, it will be the subject of an in-person public information session at Georgetown Public Library on April 20.
“Assuming EPA does not receive any new information that would make the site ineligible for the Superfund program, then EPA will likely finalize the listing,” said David Sternberg, a spokesman for the agency.
The EPA plans to investigate the extent of the ground water contamination; do a feasibility study on cleanup technologies, and propose a cleanup plan which the public will be able to comment on, Sternberg said. The agency will also look at whether there is a party that’s responsible for the contamination, and which could pay for the cleanup.
If such funding is not available, perhaps because the responsible party has gone out of business, federal money may be available from a trust fund set up by Superfund’s enabling legislation, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980.
Sternberg declined to predict how long a Superfund cleanup would take, and said it’s unlikely there will be any disruption to drinking water supply.
Currently, there are 15 active Superfund sites in Delaware. If the EPA’s proposals are finalized, there will be 14. The sites include Dover Air Force Base where monitoring and cleanup are continuing after so-called forever chemicals, formally known as PFAS, were found in 2014 at levels that in some places sharply exceeded a federal health advisory limit. The contamination spread to nine private water wells off-base, tests showed.
“This cleanup action by EPA demonstrates the value of the 1980 Superfund Act, and attention can now be turned to the next hazardous waste site on the list."Dr. Jerry Kauffman, director of the University of Delaware’s Water Resources Center
Other sites include the DuPont pigment plant landfill at Newport which was named to the National Priorities List in 1990 after state and company officials found barium, cadmium, zinc, PCE and TCE in ground water following decades of industrial waste disposal. Remedial work there includes soil excavation, capping the landfill, and the installation of a barrier to separate contaminated ground water with the nearby Christina River.
And near Delaware City, a 65-acre site once owned by Standard Chlorine is being monitored after two spills of chlorobenzene compounds during the 1980s contaminated soil, ground water and a nearby creek. The last owner, Metachem, went bankrupt in 2002, and abandoned the site, leaving some 40 million pounds of chemicals in deteriorating tanks, pipelines and treatment systems, the EPA said. The site was added to the National Priorities List in 1987.
In its new proposals, the EPA wants to remove part of the Tybouts Corner Landfill in New Castle from the list. The site was a municipal sanitary landfill which accepted industrial waste from 1968-71. Since then, remedial work has included installing pumps to contain contaminated ground water, and building a cap to prevent rain from entering the waste material in the landfill.
Now, the EPA has determined that those parts of the site no longer threaten public health or the environment, and is recommending delisting them. “Deleting sites from the NPL is a major milestone for Superfund-impacted communities,” said the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz, in a statement.
Still, the main landfill portion of the site has not yet met the EPA’s “performance standards” and so remains on the list, the agency said.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental nonprofit, urged regulators not to delist sites, particularly landfills, that may contain PFAS, toxic chemicals that are widespread in the environment, and are blamed for an array of serious illnesses.
Since Tybouts Corner accepted industrial, municipal and domestic waste, it’s likely that it took in PFAS, and that those chemicals are still in nearby soil and water because they don’t break down in the environment, Carluccio said.
“The uncontrolled spreading of PFAS contamination is recognized by agencies, including EPA, as an enormous problem but they haven’t connected all the dots,” she said. “If they did, they would require all programs, including all Superfund sites, to address potential pollution pathways by sampling for PFAS and close all pollution pathways off.”
In late February, Delaware unveiled plans to set its own enforceable health limits for two of the most common PFAS chemicals after years of following a much less strict, and non-enforceable, federal guideline.
In Cheswold, Kent County, the EPA is proposing delisting the Chem-Solv site which recycled waste solvents from 1982 until a fire destroyed the facility only two years later. Officials later found TCE and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the Columbia Aquifer beneath the site.
Officials treated ground water from 1997 until 2017 when they found contaminant levels had dropped below cleanup levels, and so ended their work.
Ortiz said deleting sites from the NPL can revitalize communities, raise property values, and boost economic growth because delisting will signal that cleanup is complete. He said the delisting can be particularly beneficial for environmental justice communities.
Dr. Jerry Kauffman, director of the University of Delaware’s Water Resources Center, welcomed the proposed delistings, saying that the cleanups took decades and now deserve to come off the list.
“This cleanup action by EPA demonstrates the value of the 1980 Superfund Act, and attention can now be turned to the next hazardous waste site on the list,” he said.
