Hazardous Waste Superfund Alert
December 4, 2006
Pg. 191(2) Vol. 28 No. 24
EPA has reached an agreement with 14 private parties to pollution and study cleanup options for the Folcroft landfill in the John HeinzNational Wildlife Refuge in Pennsylvania. The landfill in Delaware County is a part of the larger Lower Darby Creek Area Superfund site, EPA reports.
The agreement represents "the first time that private parties willconduct a Superfund investigation on federal lands under EPA's oversight," according to EPA Region 3 administrator Donald Welsh.
The potentially responsible parties participating in the agreementinclude the Boeing Co., Browning-Ferris Industries, Conoco, DelawareCounty Solid Waste Authority; E.I. DuPont Nemours and Co., FMC Corp., General Electric Co., Wilbur C. Henderson Jr., Henderson-Columbia Corp., Kimberly-Clark Corp., M.A. Bruder and Sons, PECO Energy Co., PRG Industries, Rohm and Haas Co. and Waste Management, Inc.
Field work was slated to start in early December, with collection of soil samples and installation of groundwater wells. The agency reports earlier sampling showed metals and solvents in groundwater.
The Lower Darby Creek Area Superfund site consists of the closed Clearview and Folcroft landfills located along Darby Creek near the Philadelphia Air-port. Both landfills operated from the 1950s through the 1970s for disposal of municipal, hospital, and industrial wastes directly into the marshland. EPA is currently conducting a remedial investigation and feasibility study (RI/FS) at the Clearview Landfill.
Congress in 1980 ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to purchase the Folcroft landfill to protect what has become the 1,200-acreJohn Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, which EPA reports is the only freshwater tidal wetland in Pennsylvania. Refuge officials hailed the agreement and said they hoped that the work will allow addition of 62acres to the facility's upland habitat.
Cleanup Alternatives
The RI/FS study by the potentially responsible parties is to define and determine and extent of the contamination and list possible cleanup alternatives to protect Darby Creek and the refuge. The potentially responsible parties will perform the investigatory work under EPAoversight and in cooperation with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Lower Darby Creek Areas site includes six contiguous properties or groups of properties located in the Eastwick section of Philadelphia and in Darby Township and Folcroft Borough in Delaware County.
The properties include the Clearview landfill, Industrial Drive properties (a group of several individual properties), Sunoco Darby Creek tank farm, former Delaware County sewage treatment Plant, former Delaware County incinerator, and the Folcroft Landfill and Folcroft Landfill annex. EPA reports that each of these six properties contains waste disposal areas or other sources of contaminants.
Waste sources on these properties have contributed to a release ofhazardous substances into the waters of Darby Creek and other nearbystream, EPA reports. Those substances include heavy metals, poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dioxin.
Contact: Bonnie Smith, EPA, (215) 814-5543.