Chemicals Gone Wild: Animal Bodies Burdened by Toxins, Too

To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation

Plainview site cleanup could start this summer
By Sean Ingram
judicial@couriernews.com

A $5.4 million Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund cleanup project at the former Mountain Pine Pressure Treating plant in Plainview could begin this summer, according to reports.
The first EPA inspection at the site, located on 95 acres off of Highway 28 east of Plainview, took place in 1987 and was declared a Superfund site in July 1999. An Alternative 7 cleanup will use a waste treatment process that will rid soil and existing ponds of any contaminated materials and reduce or prevent ground water contamination.
Local, state and federal government officials with the city of Plainview, EPA and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) met last month and made their final recommendations on the cleanup project. The EPA has estimated the total project to cost $5,383,000. Plainview Mayor Doug Forrest and the Plainview Chamber of Commerce hosted the meeting, where site coordinator Marc Weinreich was credited with being involved in many of the recommendations for the cleanup project.
According to The Yell County Record, Plainview Lumber Co. was located in the northern area and operated from 1965-86 as a raw and treated-wood lumber yard. A pentachorophenol (PCP) plant operated from 1965-81 in the site's central area. A CCA treatment plant was located in the eastern portion of the site and operated from 1980-86, then a brief period in the summer of 1989.
Two abandoned sites that include 19.44 acres are to be cleaned of contaminated materials, according to reports. A steel fabrication plant is planned on the site that will be located closer to Highway 28 and will locate a nine-acre plot that has been determined to be free of contamination by the EPA.
Onsite inspections and facility assessments were conducted by EPA inspectors from 1987 to 1989 and in 1993. Data was collected and potential contamination releases to the environment were evaluated. Arsenic was detected in 26 of 28 surface water samples during the testing, while PCP was detected in 16 surface water samples that were located on onsite drainage ditch locations near the former process areas that included the former plants and recovery holding and spray evaporation ponds. A follow-up was conducted by environmental officials in 1998.
The Plainview site was listed as Superfund status after the EPA considered two of the proposed cleanup sites as health hazards that could pose a cancer risk due to contamination of the soil and ground water, as well as a danger of arsenic runoff in sediment and surface water at off-site drainage on Porter Creek at Lake Nimrod.
According to the EPA, its main purpose is to rid hazardous materials from the Superfund site to prevent any possible future contact by human beings on the site, such as accidental exposure of contaminated soils and sediments, and to prevent any potential runoff of hazardous materials outside the site's immediate area.
In 1998, areas of concern at a follow-up inspection included a wildlife management area adjacent to the Superfund site; surface water runoff; the potential and risk to human health and the surrounding ecosystem; structural integrity of buildings located at the site; and an engineering cap on the remediated pond area and long-term stability of the cap in place.
State Rep. Jeff Gillespie of Danville announced a $100,000 grant awarded to the project by the EPA in July 2000 toward the site cleanup and its future use.

Copyright © 2004, Russellville Newspapers, Inc.
http://www.couriernews.com/story.asp?ID=5538

If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us.