In 2015, a federal Environmental Protection Agency official said operators of an old mixture of infected pesticides along Mitchell Avenue in Hagerstown “couldn’t have chosen a worse location” to administer it.
Bob Wallace, EPA’s manager of remediation assignments, said at the time that groundwater flows in all site instructions.
In an attempt to track any contamination coming out of the 19-acre property, decontamination crews injected dye into the property’s sinks where it could seep in.
Wallace, who among several EPA officials and others provided an update on Tuesday’s cleanup, said the dye gave the impression of 2 miles to the east. It also gave the impression of four miles west, four miles southwest and 3 miles north, Wallace said.
But Wallace has said in the past that just because the dye appears to be in a position doesn’t mean it’s contaminated, and said Tuesday that investigations are continuing into every imaginable threat to shut down groundwater supplies. He said the paintings will most likely continue for at least another year.
Meanwhile, the allocation has built a groundwater treatment facility on the former commercial site. It began operations in July and has treated about 5. 4 million gallons of water, Wallace said.
When asked how long it takes for the plant to treat groundwater, Wallace said it can take at least 30 years.
“It’s like a Superfund forever,” Wallace said.
Central Chemical Corp. combined insecticides and agricultural fertilizers at the site from the 1930s through the 1980s. Manufactured raw insecticides were combined on-site with inert fabrics to produce commercial-grade products.
Contaminants discovered in soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment, as well as in the tissues of fish trapped downstream of the site, include arsenic, lead, benzene, aldrin, chlordane, DDD, DDE, DDT, dieldrin, and methoxychlor, according to the EPA.
In 1997, it was listed in the federal Superfund program, which is designed to address abandoned hazardous fabric sites.
Previously: Work resumes on Central Chemical Superfund in Hagerstown
Federal officials insist no taxpayer money was used for the cleanup. In the past, sixteen companies had reached a $14. 3 million settlement with the EPA and the state to complete the work.
As research continues into surrounding groundwater materials, Wallace said Tuesday that he and his colleagues haven’t discovered anything that would worry nearby landowners with water wells.
“If we saw something, we would have alerted people,” he said.
There are approximately 2100 water wells within a 5-mile radius of the property.
Project officials said Tuesday they had taken precautions to make sure no large amounts of dust came out of the site during the cleanup. And they went door-to-door handing out fact sheets about the operation and answering people’s questions.
Mitch Cron, another assigned EPA remediation manager at the site, said cleaning up an ancient lagoon, the biggest environmental risk to the property, is halfway there. He said the task was confusing because the EPA and others involved in the cleanup had to figure out the most productive way to deal with tea, which involved lab testing.
Background: Central Chemical Group to Pay $250,000 to Expand Cleanup Plan
They devised a mixture of waste with cement, blast furnace slag and activated carbon. The result is a “concrete monolith” that will involve the waste and remain on site, allocation officials said.
Other work to be done is infected soil and clogging of the site, which could take until 2024, Cron said.
You expect the assets to be usable.
“Hagerstown has expressed interest in the site for soft advertising and advertising purposes,” Cron said.