Source: Providence Journal (RI), December 23, 2016
Posted on: http://www.advisen.com
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday that a settlement agreement worth an estimated $40.3 million has been filed in federal court that will continue the cleanup of the Peterson/Puritan Superfund site, a polluted property that covers 980 acres in Cumberland and Lincoln along the Blackstone River.
The agreement, which was lodged in U.S. District Court in Providence and has been decades in the making, ensures the remediation of a 500-acre portion of the property and includes putting protective caps on the former J.M. Mills Landfill and the former Nunes transfer station.
The remediation work will be paid for by about 100 businesses that were responsible for the contamination, which occurred over many years.
Under the settlement, the businesses will also pay the costs of razing old structures on the Nunes parcel, excavating tainted soil there and on the piece of land in the Blackstone River known as the “unnamed island” and moving the debris and soil under the new hazardous waste caps. Much of the land lies within the river’s floodplain.
The work will be overseen by the EPA and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Both Curt Spalding, regional administrator the EPA’s New England office, and DEM director Janet Coit said the settlement holds accountable the businesses behind the pollution.
“For decades, hazardous waste was being dumped at Peterson/Puritan, polluting the nearby Blackstone River, groundwater and soils,” Coit said in a statement. “The Blackstone River valley is home to Rhode Island’s newest national park, popular state recreational facilities and an array of natural and historic treasures. Safeguarding this beautiful place is paramount to the health of our environment, communities and families.”
The cleanup plan covers the southern half of the Peterson/Puritan site stretching down to the Pratt Dam, an area the EPA has designated Operable Unit 2. A plan for the northern half of the site — Operable Unit 1 — land that includes the former Peterson/Puritan factory and a surrounding industrial park near Martin Street in Cumberland and the former Quinnville wellfield in Lincoln, went into effect in 1997 and is still under way.
The Superfund site covers an area that is approximately two miles long and between 1,500 and 2,000 feet wide, all within what is now the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.
The Peterson/Puritan Inc. plant was built there in 1959 and began packaging aerosol consumer products. A large chemical spill took place at the site in 1974 during a rail accident.
Additional contamination came from municipal waste and materials dumped at the adjoining J.M. Mills Landfill. Approximately 2.1 million cubic yards of waste were disposed of there between about 1954 and 1986. Among the contaminants that have been found on the site are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos, heavy metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
In 1983, after discovering that the property was a major source of contamination of the water supplies in Lincoln and Cumberland and the Blackstone River, the EPA designated it a Superfund site. (The contaminated groundwater wells were taken offline in 1979 in the wake of the findings.)
The site was included on the EPA’s National Priorities List because of the potential threat to humans of exposure to the contaminated groundwater.
The cleanup plan was drawn up after an investigation of the area was carried out between 2001 and 2012. That study revealed contaminants in the soils, sediments and groundwater, as well as landfill waste that extends into the floodplain along the Blackstone.
“EPA’s cleanup plan for this site protects people’s health, while at the same time ensures the area remains aesthetically pleasing,” Spalding said.
The consent decree is subject to a 30-day public comment period and approval by the court. The complaint, as well as a list of businesses responsible for the cleanup costs, can be found at www.justice.gov/enrd/consent-decrees under the case U.S. v. ACS Industries et al.