For Release: Friday, January 11, 2013
Public Invited to Meeting on Pride Solvents and Chemical Co. Site
Public Comment Period Runs Through January 30
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), in conjunction with the State Department of Health (DOH), will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, January 22 at 7 p.m., to present a proposed clean-up plan for the Pride Solvents and Chemical Co. site in West Babylon.
The meeting will be held at the Wyandanch Senior Citizen Nutrition Center located at 28 Wyandanch Ave., Wyandanch. At the meeting, DEC and DOH staff will describe the contents of the cleanup proposal, called a Proposed Remedial Action Plan.
The Pride Solvents and Chemical Co. site is located at 78 and 88 Lamar Street in West Babylon known as the Pinelawn Industrial Area in the Town of Babylon, Suffolk County.
The site has created two distinct, contaminated groundwater plumes including a shallow plume that exists above 20 feet below the ground's surface and a deep plume that exists below 20 feet below ground surface. The site is therefore split into two Operational Units (OUs), OU-1 and OU-2.
Operable units are terms that are used to identify a portion of a site that can be addressed by a distinct investigation and cleanup approach. Each operable unit can receive its own specific investigation and a particular remedy may be proposed. For this site, OU-1 consists of shallow groundwater and soil down to 20 feet below ground surface. OU-2 is the portion of the site that contains deep groundwater that exists at depths greater than 20 feet below ground surface.
No current or potential site-related surface water impacts have been identified. Contaminated groundwater is not used as a source of potable water. Protection of this groundwater resource will be addressed in the remedy selection process.
The remedy proposed for the site includes using air sparging and soil vapor extraction to remove contamination from groundwater in OU-1 using an Air Sparge/Soil Vapor Extraction System (AS/SVE). Air sparging is an on-site technology used to treat groundwater contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The process physically removes contaminants from the groundwater by injecting air into a well that has been installed into the groundwater.
As the injected air rises through the groundwater it volatilizes the VOCs from the groundwater into the injected air. The VOCs are carried with the injected air into the vadose zone, the area below the ground surface but above the water table, where a soil vapor extraction (SVE) system is used to remove the injected air. The SVE system pulls a vacuum on wells that have been installed into the vadose zone to remove the VOCs along with the air introduced by the sparging process. The air extracted from the SVE wells is then run through activated carbon, or other air treatment as applicable, which removes VOCs from the air before it is discharged to the atmosphere.
The SVE system will also remediate unsaturated soil contaminated with VOCs. The vacuum draws air through the soil matrix which carries the VOCs from the soil to the SVE well. The VOC-contaminated soils are in the same locations as the contaminated groundwater.
At this site, approximately 40 air injection wells will be installed in the portion of the site to be treated to a depth of approximately 30 feet, which is 10 to 20 feet below the water table. To capture the volatilized contaminants, approximately 12 SVE wells will be installed in the vadose zone at a depth of approximately seven feet below ground surface. The air containing VOCs extracted from the SVE wells will be treated with activated carbon (or other air treatment as applicable).
OU-2 will be treated with a permeable reactive barrier using enhanced anaerobic bioremediation. A permeable reactive barrier (PRB) is an on-site method for remediating contaminated groundwater, which creates an underground barrier or layer that can collect or treat contaminants in groundwater that flows through it.
Bioremediation uses microorganisms that already exist in the substrate to degrade organic contaminants in groundwater or on soil, either extracted, excavated or in place. The microorganisms break down contaminants by using them as a food source or co-metabolizing them with a food source.
Aerobic processes require an oxygen source, and the end products typically are carbon dioxide and water. Anaerobic processes are conducted in the absence of oxygen, and the end products can include methane, hydrogen gas, sulfide, elemental sulfur and nitrogen gas. In situ (in place) techniques stimulate and create a favorable environment for micro-organisms to grow and use contaminants as a food and energy source. Sometimes, micro-organisms that have been adapted for degradation of specific contaminants are applied to enhance the process.
Enhanced Anaerobic Bioremediation will be implemented via the injection of electron donors, carbon, and nutrients (otherwise referred to as "amendments"), into the subsurface above a contaminated layer of clay that lies horizontally below the ground surface and is feeding the deep groundwater plume. The contaminants in the clay layer leech off the clay, contaminating groundwater that flows above it and creating a contaminated groundwater plume. The amendments will be injected so that a very thick layer of amendment will cover the most highly impacted section of the clay layer, creating the permeable reactive layer. This layer will treat contaminants that are pulled off the clay layer by the moving groundwater.
Both remedies will include Institutional and Engineering Controls. Specifically, Institutional Controls:
• establish an environmental easement that allows the use and development of the controlled property for commercial and industrial uses;
• restrict the use of groundwater as a source of potable or process water;
• prohibit agriculture or vegetable gardens on the controlled property;
• require the remedial party or site owner to complete and submit to DEC a periodic certification of institutional and engineering controls; and
• require compliance with DEC-approved Site Management Plan.
The Engineering Controls will include, but are not limited to, an Excavation Plan to manage future excavations in areas of remaining contamination and evaluate the potential for soil vapor intrusion for any buildings developed on the site. Additional Engineering controls include:
• addressing exposures related to soil vapor intrusion;
• managing and inspecting the identified engineering controls;
• maintaining site access controls and notifying DEC;
• identifying the steps necessary for the periodic reviews and certification of the institutional and/or engineering controls;
• creating a Monitoring Plan to assess the performance and effectiveness of the remedies; and
• creating an Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Plan to ensure continued operation; maintenance, monitoring, inspection, optimization and reporting of the mechanical or physical components of the remedy.
Based upon investigations conducted to date, the contaminants of concern for OU-1 and OU-2 include tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethene (TCE), 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA), and their break down products.
These contaminants plus toluene and methylene chloride were also found in on-site dry wells or storm drains at 88 Lamar, as well as in the on-site soils around and under the former underground storage tank and above ground storage tanks. PCE disposal has resulted in the contamination of deep, saturated soil which results in groundwater contamination exceeding Standards, Criteria and Guidance's.
The public comment period for the proposed remedy runs through January 30.
DEC developed the proposed remedy after reviewing a detailed investigation of the site and the evaluation of remedial options in the feasibility study submitted under New York's State Superfund Program.
The site is listed as a Class 2 site in the State Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Sites (list of State Superfund sites). A Class 2 site represents a significant threat to public health or the
Environment; action is required.
DEC will consider public comments as it finalizes the preferred remedy for the site. The selected remedy will be described in a document called a Record of Decision that will explain why the remedy was selected and respond to public comments.
The Pride Solvents site is located at both 78 and 88 Lamar Street, in West Babylon in Suffolk County, NY. It is about 500 feet east, crossgradient, of the Babylon Landfill. The site is 1.3 acres with two occupied buildings in a commercial and light industrial zoned district. The remainder of the site is paved except for two small, grassy areas directly in front of the buildings.
This site was occupied by Pride Solvents from 1960 to the late 1990s/early 2000s and was operated as a chemical and solvent distribution and reclamation facility. Presently, the property is owned by Pride and leased to a roll-off container distributing company and an autobody shop. The facility was formerly permitted to operate as a TSDF (Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility) under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) program. The site has been included in the USEPA's tracking system under the Government Performance and Results Act for corrective action. The RCRA Corrective Action Program requires investigation and cleanup of releases of hazardous wastes and hazardous constituents that pose an unacceptable risk at RCRA hazardous waste TSDFs. This site has not yet met indicators to show compliance with RCRA Corrective Action.
Pride Solvents and Chemicals received and stored waste solvents, both inside and outside, and then reclaimed the material via a filtration and distillation process. The operation at 78 Lamar Street included storage and reclamation of chlorinated and fluorinated solvents by distillation. Operations at the 88 Lamar Street facility were limited, reportedly, to bulk storage, drum packaging and distribution.
Contamination associated with the Pride site was first identified in 1982 to 1983 by the Suffolk County Department of Health. A Phase I Preliminary Site Assessment was conducted in 1984 followed by a hydrogeologic investigation in 1991. Various investigations were conducted by Pride in 1992, 1993 and 1996, under the RCRA program until DEC's Division of Environmental Remediation took over the project at the end of 1999.
Since obtaining the site in 1999, various remedial investigations have been conducted to determine the vertical and horizontal extent of contamination. Once the extent was determined, several proposed remedies were researched, taking into account both cost and efficiency. DEC has selected one of these plans as the proposed remedy.
Prior to January 1991, the northernmost yard of 88 Lamar Street contained 16 underground storage tanks. Twelve were removed and four were filled with concrete and left in place. Despite the reported good condition of the tanks, about 50 cubic yards of soil were removed and disposed off-site during the tank removal. No tank tightness testing data is available.
DEC is accepting written comments about the proposed plan for 30 days, from January 1,
2013 through January 30, 2013. The selected remedy will be described in a document called a Record of Decision that will explain why the remedy was selected and respond to public comments. A detailed design of the selected remedy will then be prepared, and the cleanup will be performed.
Comments and questions should be sent to:
Ms. Tara Diaz
Department of Environmental Conservation
Division of Environmental Remediation
Albany, NY 12233-7015
Site-Related Health Questions
Ms. Renata Ockerby
New York State Department of Health,
Empire State Plaza Corning Tower Room 1787
Albany, NY 12237