AB500IOITranscript of the public meeting held on 10 Wednesday, May 5, 1993 at the Cumberland...
Transcript of AB500IOITranscript of the public meeting held on 10 Wednesday, May 5, 1993 at the Cumberland...
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
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5 • Public Meeting on the Proposed RemedialAction Plan for the Hunterstown Road
6 Superfund Site located in StrabanTownship, Adams County, Pennsylvania
7
8
9Transcript of the public meeting held on
10 Wednesday, May 5, 1993 at the CumberlandTownship Municipal Building, Gettysburg,
11 Pennsylvania.
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13
14Virginia Moseley, Community Relations Coordinator
15 Frank Vavra, Remedial Project ManagerBruce Rundell, Geologist
16 Jeffrey Pike, Chief, Western PA Remedial SectionJim Spontak, Department of Environmental Resources
17
18
19
20Alicia K. Wooters, RPR
21 5620 Carlisle PikeNew Oxford, PA 17350
22 Official Court Reporter
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AB500IOI
1 - I N D E XPage
2PRESENTATIONS:
3Virginia Moseley 3-8
4 'Frank Vavra 8-14
5Bruce Rundell 14-18
6COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS • 34-91
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27 AR500I02
1 - Wednesday, May 5, 1993
2 Cumberland Township
3 Transcript of public meeting for the United States
4 Environmental Protection Agency, held at th6 Cumberland
5 Township Municipal Building, the following proceedings were
6 held:
7 (Beginning at 7:02 p.m.)>
8 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Good evening everyone. Thank
9 you for coming out on this very rainy night. My name is
10 Virginia Moseley, and I am the Community Relations
11 Coordinator for the Hunterstown Road Superfund Site. I know
12 some of you are probably used to dealing with a community
13 relations person by the name of Amy Barnett. Amy is home
14 taking care of her first born son who was born in March.
15 She's a very busy young lady, so I will be the community
16 relations coordinator for this site. My cards are out on
17 the counter. When you came in, hopefully you got them. If
18 not, please help yourself to one on the way out.
19 What we're going to do tonight is just briefly take a
20 look at where we are in the superfund process at the
21 Hunterstown Road site. Then I'm going to tell you a little
22 bit about the proposed plan meeting and the reason we're all
23 here tonight, introduce some of our panel members and then
24 I'll be turning the program over to the people who will be
25 giving their presentations.
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 You -received several handouts when you came in tonight
2 and one of them looks like this. If you would turn to that,
3 find that one. I want to point out where we are here in the
4 system and you will notice on the handout that you were
5 given that the proposed plan has been highlighted in yellow.
6 So briefly starting at the top, we have the site
7 discovery, then the preliminary assessment, which is the•
8 evaluation of existing site-specific data. The site
9 inspection, collection of air, soil, water samples from the
10 site and nearby areas. Then we went on to do the hazard
11 ranking system, which is shown here HRS on your handout
12 which is a mathematical approach to assessing the risks that
13 are posed at the site. Then we have the listing on the
14 national priorities list, NPL list we refer to it. Then we
15 have remedial investigation, feasibility study.
16 You will see now we are down here for the proposed
17 plan. That is the reason that we're here tonight. Proposed
18 plan. You'll see next to that it says public comment. So
19 we are here this evening to receive your comments, your
20 questions and your comments during this proposed plan.
21 We have a thirty day public comment period. That is
22 required by federal regulation. Now, the plan was released
23 and a notice was published in your two local newspapers on
24 April 24. That was a Saturday. The notice of the plan and
25 this meeting appeared in the Hanover Evening Sun and in the
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AR50Q iOfficial Court Reporter
1 Gettysburg Times. So the public comment period as I said is
2 30 days and that will remain open until May 24. That gives
3 you the public and other members of the public who are not
4 here this evening an opportunity to submit your comments and
5 your questions both in person orally tonight and also
6 written questions. You are able to send them in and I'll
7 show you where in just a moment.
8 The EPA is going to review all of the comments and all
9 the questions that are received during this thirty day
10 period. These are all going to be looked at and listened to
11 before making a final selection of the site clean up
12 alternatives. Your comments are going to be incorporated in
13 what EPA calls a responsive summary and that will- be made
14 part of the administrative record both at EPA headquarters
15 and at the local information repository which here in
16 Gettysburg is at the Adams County Library on Baltimore
17 Street.
18 You notice this evening we have a stenographer present.
19 She will be recording your questions and your comments when
20 we get to that part of the meeting. You can also review the
21 plan. We have some copies this evening out on the counter.
22 There is a copy at the repository at the library as well and
23 you can submit comments and questions in writing.
24 We have a facts sheet out there on the counter. I
25 think most of you here this evening have already received
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ftDCnn I fiCOfficial Court Reporter HROUUlUb
1 one. Tha facts sheet looks like this and on the inside on
2 page two you will see where your comments if you care to ^|)
3 write some. If you think of some more after the meeting
4 tonight, certainly send them in and you'll see they are to
5 be addressed to Frank Vavra, who is the remedial project
6 manager who will be giving a presentation this evening.
7 If there are any questions about that, make sure you
8 have this or ask one of us before you leave. When you came
9 in this evening you were asked to sign our attendance list.
10 I hope everyone did that. The reason we do that is so that
11 we can send mailings out to you to keep you informed of
12 what's going on at the site. We use the mailing list to
13 send things such as this fact sheet so it really behooves
14 you to give us your name and address. It's very important
15 so we can keep in touch. "I*
16 One of the other things you received tonight is an
17 agenda. Would you kindly pull out the agenda. It's two
18 pages clipped together. Let's just take a moment to look at
19 what's going to happen tonight. Presentations will be given
20 this evening by Frank Vavra, who is the remedial project
21 manager and Bruce Rundell, who is a geologist for the EPA.
22 We also have present this evening Jeff Pike, who is EPA
23 section chief and Jim Spontak, who is compliance specialist
24 with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources.
25 We also have present this evening a representative from
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 Congressman Goodling's Office. Would you care to stand and
2 identify yourself? Any other local officials, elected
3 officials or representatives of elected officials this
4 evening?
5 (No response.)
6 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Going on to the second page,
7 just a couple of ground rules before we get started. We*
8 want to draw your attention to the fact that the topic.of
9 this meeting tonight is the Hunterstown Road Superfund Site,
10 so we ask you please to keep your comments and your
11 questions very specific to this site. We had note cards and
12 pencils out at the counter if anyone is reluctant to stand
13 and give a question or a comment, if you would like to write
14 them on a card, we'd be more than happy to bring them to the
15 appropriate person, so feel free to do that. They are in
16 the back at the counter if you want them or need them.
17 Now, if you want to ask a question or make a comment,
18 we ask that you raise your hand to be identified and we
19 would appreciate it if you would give your name at that time
20 so that our stenographer can record that. That's at your
21 discretion. We ask that you do that, but you are not
22 obliged to if you are not comfortable with that. Any
23 questions or comments so far on anything that I've said?
24 (No response.)
25 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Okay, we will go into our
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AR500I07Official Court Reporter
1 presentation and we would like to ask that you would hold
2 your questions until the end of the presentations. Please
3 jot something down and when the gentlemen are through, they
4 will ask you when they are ready for questions. Without
5 further ado I would like to introduce to you Frank Vavra,
6 the remedial project manager for Hunterstown Road.
7 FRANK VAVRA: I do want to keep the meeting*
8 informal, and the reason we're asking you to defer your
9 questions until after we are finished is simply so I can get
10 through the technical material. We had previously had two
11 meetings in this building to present the results of a
12 remedial investigation and feasibility study including the
13 risk assessment prior to this time. Tonight the primary
14 focus is the alternatives that were evaluated in theil15 feasibility study, and EPA's preference for the alternatives ™"
16 we think will produce the best results in cleaning up the
17 Superfund Site.
18 After that we will have a very informal session where
19 we're going to discuss any of your questions. We will go
20 back, if we need to pull slides out and discuss them, we
21 will do that. I would like to give a quick overview of the
22 results of the RI and some the alternatives we looked at and
23 what we think is the best solution to the site problems.
24 I would guess that everyone in this room knows where
25 the site is but in case they don't, the site is located to
8
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR A R 0 U 0 I 0 8 JfcOfficial Court Reporter
1 the north-east of Gettysburg. It's along Shealer Road just
2 as you come in off of Route 30 into downtown Gettysburg.
3 This is an overview of the site and it shows the
4 different areas of the site that had problems in the past.
5 What I wanted to highlight in discussing these areas is the
6 fact that although we are looking at some final remedies for
7 the site, there has been a substantial amount of EPA action»
8 done by Westinghouse and EPA to mitigate many of the site
9 problems previously. What I would like to point out is
10 these two areas had very large numbers of drums that were
11 buried at the Superfund Site. Those were removed in 1989 in
12 a fairly extensive removal action performed by Westinghouse
13 under EPA oversight. This area noted as the borrow area had
14 asbestos piles, it had lead contamination and there were
15 past actions by Westinghouse on the EPA oversight to remove
16 the asbestos and to take mitigating measures, which included
17 placing some small amount of soil and stabilizing that area
18 for future exploration.
19 This area is known as the lagoon area and it contained
20 solvent sludges, it contained paint wastes and other
21 metallic wastes. Again back in the mid '80's this had been
22 removed by Westinghouse in an extensive removal action and a
23 chain link fence was placed' around that area. There is a
24 stream which runs through these areas and there were fences
25 placed to prevent contaminants from moving into that area
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ftll9UUlu9Official Court Reporter
1 also.
2 The stressed vegetation area had tarps placed over this
3 area which contained again metal wastes containing lead,
4 antimony and other toxic metals. The cornfields had
5 previously been used for disposal of some sludges from a
6 truck which basically went up and down the cornfields and
7 sprayed material on the cornfields.«
8 We have three streams at the site. We have the west
9 stream, the middle stream and the east stream. Many of
10 these contaminants have been deposited into these areas
11 along the east stream and that was investigated, and
12 remedial investigation has been previously discussed at some
13 of the prior meetings.
14 Other protections for the public included extension of
15 water lines. This is the area of the site, east stream, "I"
16 middle stream, west stream. One drum burial area was
17 located here. One drum burial area located here. The
18 lagoons were in this area and the ground water contamination
19 is located in this general vicinity and you can see the
20 people in that area are served by a water line and EPA
21 during remedial investigation verified that in several
22 surveys of residents to make sure that everyone was
23 knowledgeable about the problem and that anyone in the area
24 of ground water contamination was in fact using the
25 municipal water supply.
10
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR tf|Official Court Reporter ^"
1 Additional actions were taken by Westinghouse under EPA
2 oversight to further protect the public and many samples of
3 residential wells were taken along Old Harrisburg Road.
4 ' Some concerns of off site, of nearby residents involved lead
5 contamination in some of the metals that were present in the
6 cornfields, and I believe Merle Hankey and Don Waddell
7 raised the issue what about when this area was being farmed,*
8 rototilling could have spread the lead into some of the
9 surrounding areas and we did do some limited sampling and
10 based on our results and also based on the contaminant
11 distributions in the cornfields, we do not believe that
12 there is off site metals contamination of concern. Those
13 are things that have happened in the past to prevent the
14 immediate threat from the site and a lot of them were quite
15 extensive.
16 During remedial investigation we went and explored
17 further to see what residual contamination remained in these
18 areas and to try to determine how widespread it was, where
19 it had migrated to and other things that would help us
20 determine what the appropriate remedy for the site would be.
21 The results of the remedial investigation basically
22 showed that in this drum burial area there were residual
23 volatile contaminants. These are materials that are
24 solvents, sealants, gasoline type compounds, but they were
25 relatively low levels, and this area had been excavated and
11
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AR50QI I IOfficial Court Reporter
1 the drums- had been removed. Contaminated soils had also
2 been removed and it had been extensively sampled at the end f||f
3 of that drum removal activity. The remaining contaminants
4 ' are below the water table much of the time. Because there
5 is considerable contamination down in the bedrock beneath
6 that, we believe the most appropriate way to address that in
7 general is to handle it with whatever action we plan to take»
8 for ground water.
9 A similar situation in this drum burial area.
10 Contaminated soils and drums were removed and on sampling
11 the area came up basically clean. The two cornfields
12 contained lead and mercury and EPA evaluates areas to
13 determine whether they are safe in two ways. One, EPA looks
14 at the risk from cancer. And the second way that EPA looks
15 at risks is systemic risk, the risk of say a poison. The ™"
16 effect on organs and the cancer risk was low in this area,
17 however, it did have unacceptable hazard indices. That
18 means that the risk — if a child were to live on the site
19 and ingest that soil over a protracted period of time, that
20 would pose an unacceptable risk. The risk assessment also
21 showed for people living nearby there were no unacceptable
22 risks from the soils. Trespassing children were a limited
23 duration also posed no unacceptable health risk but someone
24 actually living there, it is outside EPA's risk range and so
25 for future use it would require mitigation.
12
Alicia K. wooters, RPR AR500 I 12 fitOfficial Court Reporter
1 The- lagoon area was sampled and it contained high
2 levels of toxic metals and one of two samples contained
3 contamination as vinyl chloride, which is carcinogenic.
4 Because solvents were disposed in this area, they are also
5 subject to some of EPA's hazardous waste regulations under
6 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The risk levels
7 for cancer and the hazard index for someone actually living»
8 at the site were unacceptable. Those soils are still at
9 unacceptable levels for EPA.
10 This east stream is a pathway we studied and we found
11 contamination as we would have expected from run off from
12 the lagoon area and a burial area and the cornfields had
13 carried some contaminants down into the sediments. There
14 were relatively low, very low levels of contaminants in the
15 water itself and tended to be in the stream. A very limited
16 stretch of the stream had a high level of zinc and what's
17 known as phthalate. Phthalate is a plasticizer put in
18 polyvinyl chloride plastic. PVC plastic to soften the
19 plastic but it's toxic at certain levels and can have an
20 affect on wildlife or aquatic life.
21 There is a very limited section of the stream that
22 EPA's biological technical assistance team believes needs
23 action. Because large amounts of solids were disposed in
24 the lagoon area, the drum burial area two and drum burial
25 area one, there were extensive plumes of ground water
13
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AllOUOl 13Official Court Reporter
1 contamination and at this point I'm' going to turn the
2 presentation over to our geologist, Bruce Rundell and let
3 you explain the situation with respect to the ground water.
4 BRUCE RUNDELL: The Hunterstown Road site is
5 underlined by rocks that make up what's called the
6 Gettysburg formation. These rocks are composed of
7 sandstones, siltstones and shales that were deposited two
8 hundred million years ago. When they were deposited, they
9 were deposited in streams, in lakes, in horizontal, flat
10 environment, one layer on top of another sort of like
11 stacking up books or papers.
12 When this was going on, there was faulting in the area
13 on the western side of Gettysburg really and what we have is
14 a large fault that as these sediments were being deposited
15 there was movement down on the western side of Gettysburg ™P
16 and basically what we ended up with is a wedge of these
17 sedimentary rocks sort of like this along this fault where
18 this wedge is two to three thousand feet thick.
19 As they slowly got buried, these sediments become
20 cemented together and turn into rocks. As that occurs, the
21 beds of similar material cement differently than other beds
22 and you get along these contacts between a pile of sand and
23 a pile of mud, you tend to have what are called bedding
24 plane fractures which are basically thin cracks. That's
25 pretty much where the ground water is forced to move along
14
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR .. fib. , ..Official Court Reporter AR500I I k
1 these cracks. In other words, they'd be restricted to
2 flowing between these two books.
3 This figure here is a block diagram. It's like if you
4 took a square out of the earth, this is what it would look
5 like. We have these alternating beds of different material,
6 shales and muds and these thinner layers of sands. The
7 sands are where we find most of these bedding plane
8 fractures. Therefore, most of the ground's water flow is
9 restricted to these sandy layers.
10 Also due to the forces of the earth, you do get cracks
11 in between these but there are a lot less of them than there
12 are of the bedding plane fractures, so most of the water is
13 restricted to these beds with a little bit of movement
14 possible between the beds.
15 What also this figure shows is how contaminants move
16 in this environment. If you have a spill at the surface and
17 what we have at the Hunterstown Road site is primarily
18 solvents and other kinds of organics, these solvents, you
19 can sort of picture them like oil in that they don't readily
20 dissolve in water. The only difference between the solvents
21 and oil is that the solvents we're looking at are heavier
22 than water, so they don't float on top of the water table.
23 They sink, because they are heavier than water. What we
24 have is these move down through the soil and enter the
25 bedrock. Some of it is dissolved slowly and enters as a
15
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I I 5Official Court Reporter
1 dissolve -phase in the ground water. Other parts just
2 continue down due to gravity, as in a sense an ooze, and
3 it's controlled by gravity so it slides down these bedding
4 plane fractures and basically just goes down further and
5 further with dip.
6 That's unfortunately what we see at the Hunterstown
7 Road site is that this in a sense slime of solvents extends
8 to great depth. We have wells that have very high
9 concentrations at five hundred feet, three hundred feet and
10 basically what we believe is that they can continue to keep
11 going and we're not exactly sure to what depth. We do know
12 that the basin is two to three thousand feet thick, so
13 theoretically we could have two thousand feet of
14 contamination going down.
15 One other thing that this figure shows that the
16 contamination is pretty much restricted to the bedding plane
17 fractures that come to the surface underneath the spill
18 area. What you see here primarily goes down this. It's not
19 really affecting this water bearing zone over here or this
20 one over here. Sometimes it can cut across where these
21 other breaks in the rock are and may affect the water
22 bearing zone further down but that depends primarily on the
23 ground water flow directions and how many of those fractures
24 are really out there.
25 So during the investigation we put in a number of
16 ARSOO! 1Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 wells all- over the site and this figure shows the existence
2 of contamination of the three areas. This is the lagoon
3 area. It's supposed to be blue. It turned sort of green.
4 This is drum burial area two in green and drum burial area
5 one in red. What these lines are are equal concentration
6 lines of contaminants for the total volatile organics.
7 What you see here emanating from the lagoon area in the»
8 center of the plume is very high concentrations of total
9 volatiles. This number is hard to read, but it says ten
10 thousand so basically anything within the circle has
11 concentrations greater than ten thousand parts per billion
12 total volatile organics. This next line is one thousand.
13 This final line out here is one hundred. The exact limit to
14 where we go, zero is probably out here, but we don't really
15 know exactly where that is.
16 For drum burial area two, moving up this has a lot less
17 contamination. This inner circle is one hundred parts per
18 billion. This little circle here has concentration similar
19 to this real big circle from the lagoon area. This outer
20 circle is ten parts per billion total volatiles.
21 At the drum burial area one you see a little bit
22 different in that the highest concentration, this ten
23 thousands out here and not really right next to where the
24 drum burial area is. In these, the highest concentrations
25 are really close to what we believe is the ARARS.
17
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I I 7Official Court Reporter
1 .MERLE HANKEY: Why is that? Why is that ten
2 thousand further away from drum burial area in relationship
3 to the other areas?
4 BRUCE RUNDELL: It's a number of things but when
5 they were depositing all these drums here and breaking them
6 open, I guess the model that we use is a slug of
7 contaminants moved down early in the plume's history and the9
8 biggest slug is further down, dipped down those bedding
9 planes and what's left behind are still high concentrations
10 greater than a thousand is pretty high, is sort of like the
11 slime but the bigger pool is further down. In these areas
12 the pool, the larger volume of contaminants are closer to
13 the surface.
14 FRANK VAVRA: You might point out though we don't
15 have wells deep enough. We consulted with the U.S. Geologic
16 Service when we were looking at the RI and FS and trying to
17 make some decisions on the ground water, and it was USGS
18 opinion that we could have what we call dense non-aqueous
19 phase liquids. The oily layer of contaminants down to
20 depths as deep as two to three thousand feet.
21 If you were to sink a well in the lagoon area bedding
22 plane which is angled down, we have a plume up near the
23 surface but it could well be if you were able to put a 15
24 hundred foot well there, you might find much greater levels
25 of contamination there than you have near the surface.
18 AR500II8Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 What, we think is we have a well deep enough at
2 Hunterstown to find that greater concentration plume with
3 the lagoon area. We just think there is a good chance
4 that's so deep we haven't detected it.
5 BRUCE RUNDELL: To illustrate that point we have
6 this picture. It's a cross section sort of like that block
7 diagram. If you were to take a slice through the earth,V
8 this is a picture of it. What we have here, these are our
9 wells to different depth. This is, see here, depth and feet
10 and we have our different strata that make up the rock
11 formation. These are our water bearing zones. These big
12 dash lines are what we call equal potential lines and they
13 are based on the water level in these individual wells.
14 For instance, the water level in this well has an
15 elevation of 515. The elevation in this well is hard to
16 read, 530 or something like that, so based on that it's sort
17 of like a map of pressures. Sort of like the same way the
18 weather man does to figure out where the highs and lows are.
19 He looks at all the barometers around the country and draws
20 these lines of equal pressures. From the equal pressures we
21 can tell which way ground water wants to flow. It wants to
22 flow from areas of high pressure or high elevation to areas
23 of low pressure or the low elevations.
24 What we've found at this site is there is a very strong
25 predominantly downward grading. The ground water wants to
19
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 19Official Court Reporter
1 move down.. That's what these green lines show is the path
2 at which the ground water would like to flow. It is as you ^1)
3 remember restricted by these planes but those planes do have
4 cracks cutting them so it can, the flow can''go across these
5 water bearing zones but would like to stay within them.
6 This red line is how we have envisioned the direction of the
7 plumes. This is where the lagoon area is. This is drum»
8 burial area two and drum burial area one.
9 What this hashed area is are equal concentration lines
10 like I showed you on the last map except they are in a
11 vertical plane and this is what Frank was referring to
12 earlier in that we have wells in the lagoon area that go
13 here sort of in the heart of this part and then this next
14 well — well, this is 23 thousand parts per billion. This
15 well down here has 382, but we really don't know exactly "'
16 what it is down here. That's why you see these dashed
17 lines. This 23 you know could extend further down or it
18 could be 40. It's an unknown.
19 This is the drum burial area two and you see a much
20 smaller area of less concentration. This deep well here is
21 18 parts per billion and this over here is the drum burial
22 area one. What we did find after this figure was made, we
23 installed some more wells and the concentrations went up
24 instead of going down. We had hoped that going down this
25 bedding plane past this 671 parts per billion we'd drill out
20
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR Alt500l20Official Court Reporter
1 here and ̂ we'd get 50 or some low number but in fact what we• •
2 found was the concentration has increased and that's where
3 the idea of that slug developed.
4 ' Another thing you'll notice in between1these two we
5 have wells that have nondetects so it sort of helps show and
6 separate these three plumes. The big question is to what
7 depth does contamination go. And also this is a rechargef
8 area and like everything else if you have a recharge area,
9 somewhere you have a discharge area where ground water will
10 come to the surface and discharge to a creek. The basin is
11 two thousand feet deep.
12 There is ground water at two thousand feet and three
13 thousand feet. As you go deeper, the time at which that
14 water was in contact with the rocks grows to a long, long
15 time. The water down at two thousand feet is thousands and
16 thousands of years old. It's been in contact with the rocks
17 a long time. It's been able to dissolve some of those
18 rocks. The quality of water decreases as you get down. If
19 you have a two thousand foot well, you'd be drinking salt
20 water. It's not really drinkable as far as humans are
21 concerned. There is water down there and it is possible for
22 the contamination to get down that far.
23 We talked to USGS geological survey about where this
24 ground water might come up and that's part to be included in
25 our remedy. We'll be investigating that and monitoring it
UR500I2JAlicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 as well. -
2 I guess I can turn this back over to Frank and he can
3 go over the remedial plans.
4 ' FRANK VAVRA: I think Bruce did an excellent job
5 in describing the technical problem specific to the site.
6 One thing EPA is also wrestling with is the general problem
7 for sites such as Hunterstown Road. As we mentioned, theref
8 is a substance called a dense non-aqueous phase liquid. If
9 you took a can of paint solvent and poured it into a glass
10 of water, it would form a lighter just like salad forms an
11 oil water layer and you would have the contaminate on the
12 bottom of the glass. It wants to sink. It's heavier than
13 water. It doesn't want to dissolve and will dissolve
14 sparingly over a very, very long period of time.
15 There are a lot of sites like this across the nation
16 where we have had solvent spills. They are used in many,
17 many operations. In some geologies there is a very good
18 chance that you can remediate these and succeed and do it in
19 a very short finite period of time.
20 Probably the most difficult site to clean up for ground
21 water is where you spill these type of materials into
22 fractured bedrock, because the material drops down into
23 little crevices, it gets trapped and it's going to
24 redissolve into the water very slowly over time and
25 disperse. There are a lot of different positions on this.
22
Official Court Reporter AR500Alicia K. Wooters, RPR _ _ _ _ _ , jfll
1 There are- very well known hydrogeologists who think at sites
2 like these the aquifer has terminal cancer and EPA shouldn't
3 try to do anything. The bulk of hydrogeologists believe if
4 we.can't totally remediate it, we can sling'the plume and
5 make sure the contamination doesn't spread further. This is
6 reflected in EPA's preference for an alternative that we
7 believe is protective but to recognize the difficulty
8 inherent in trying to clean up and to mitigate risk at a
9 site such as this.
10 Therefore, we looked at essentially two alternatives
11 that were developed by a Westinghouse contractor. One is a
12 pump and treat alternative that will extract the ground
13 water and pull the plume in at reasonable depths and then
14 there is another alternative where we try to remediate the
15 ground water on an accelerated basis. You're pumping more
16 water. Some of the water is reinjected to try to flush out
17 the aquifer by forcing additional water through that.
18 There are two extraction alternatives we looked at.^
19 EPA doesn't believe to go below eight hundred feet is going
20 to be productive. I think to drill wells of that depth
21 through some very hard rock just tracking this through the
22 crevices would be a monumental task and no one is using the
23 ground water at those depths and the quality also declines.
24 Therefore, we looked at the two extraction
25 alternatives, but they are dealing with water above eight
23
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO IOfficial Court Reporter
1 hundred £eet. It's not an arbitrary number. It is a
2 judgmental number, but what we decided in consultation with
3 USGS is eight hundred feet is the depth of the deepest well
4 in the Gettysburg area. To go beyond that is probably not
5 productive. This is not a selected remedy.
6 We are here to take public comment. We expect to have
7 comments from the public. We expect to have comments
8 submitted by the responsible parties at the site. These are
9 the alternatives that were evaluated. Remedial action
10 alternative A, no action. Remedial alternative B, ground
11 water .extraction, chemical oxidation using UV catalysis.
12 Ground water extraction with treatment by aqueous phase
13 carbon absorption in burial areas one and two. The reason
14 it's divided into two pieces is that the plumes do not
15 contain identical contaminants. There is one area of the
16 ground water near the lagoon that had what we call vinyl
17 chloride and there are many technologies will not work for
18 vinyl chloride.
19 Therefore, the lagoon area ground water we looked at on
20 a two part basis. Splitting the ground water up and some of
21 these are combined for site wide remedies. Chemical
22 oxidation using UV catalysis. This is a process where
23 peroxide is added to the ground water and ultraviolet light
24 splits the molecule apart and releases oxygen which destroys
25 the contaminants.
24
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 It's- almost the same technology if anyone has soft
2 contacts and they add peroxide to that, it destroys organics
3 that accumulate on the lens.
4 Carbon absorption is a very proven technology.
5 Activated carbon has been used to remove contaminants from
6 foods and many other options. It's widely used in remedial
7 activities. This alternative would involve passing waterf
8 through an activated carbon bed for the one area of the site
9 and in the other area of the site the more aggressive
10 oxidation UV catalysis.
11 Remedial alternative C, ground water extraction with
12 chemical oxidation using UV again and air stripping and the
13 air stripping process water trickles down through- a tower
14 that is packed with little plastic balls and air flows up
15 and the volatile contaminants dissolve from the water and go
16 into the air. Then they will be captured as they pass
17 through an activated carbon bed and that is the other
18 technology that was evaluated.
19 Ground water extraction, chemical oxidation of
20 contaminants using UV for off site ground water. Ground
21 water extraction air stripping and catalytic oxidation for
22 the lagoon area and aqueous phase carbon absorption for drum
23 burial areas. Basically the same technologies we talked
24 about just looking at different combinations of how we can
25 do this and what might be more cost effective.
25
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 Alternative F, ground water extraction, air stripping
2 and catalytic oxidation for the lagoon area. Air stripping
3 carbon absorption for the drum burial areas.
4 Alternative G, ground water extraction, air stripping
5 catalytic oxidation for off-site ground water. These
6 alternatives with the catalytic oxidation water passes down
7 through the stripper, air comes up through the stripper and»
8 absorbs the contaminants and then it passes over a heated
9 catalyst bed which destroys the chemicals as it oxidizes
10 them. Your end products are carbon dioxide, water vapor and
11 some traces of chlorine probably lower than what comes out
12 of your dishwasher.
13 Alternative G is ground water extraction, air stripping
14 and catalytic oxidation of contaminants in ground water and
15 that is EPA's preferred alternative.
16 Alternative H is aggressive aquifer remediation. This
17 is the one we're going to extract at a more rigorous rate
18 and reinject and EPA did not prefer that for several
19 reasons. One, with reinjection you introduce a degree of
20 unpredictability.
21 By injecting water into the formation you could force
22 it to a crack where you don't want it to go. Also in ground
23 water remediation sites like this it's more effective in
24 many cases to pump at a lower rate or to do what EPA calls
25 false pumping. You pump for a while, shut the pumps down,
26
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 let the contamination build up and collect it and treat it
2 efficiently.
3 The other way is to extract it slowly and treat it at a
4 rate where it contains enough contaminants to make it cost
5 effective. These give you some of the costs of the
6 remedies. I'm not going to belabor all these. The proposed
7 plan is out. I realize this can be a little dry.
8 Unfortunately, Hunterstown Road has so many different areas
9 and so many different alternatives evaluated, this becomes
10 necessarily complex, but I at least wanted to give you an
11 overview.
12 EPA looked at the soil areas and they are evaluated
13 from no action, soil cover, under the soil cover about a
14 foot and a half soil would be put over a geotextile. This
15 is simply like a plastic cloth. It allows water to
16 penetrate it. It's not a membrane liner like a low
17 permeability cap for hazardous waste. What that would do,
18 it would be a visual marker. If the soil were to erode away
19 in the future, you could see the liner and know you had to
20 do something with that soil.
21 A low permeability cap is a cap where either several
22 feet of clay or something like a swimming pool liner is
23 placed over that clay and it prevents water from going
24 through the waste underneath it and absorbing contaminants
25 and moving into the ground water. The water will run off of
27
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 27Official Court Reporter
1 the cap and it basically keeps water from leaching through
2 the waste.
3 Excavate, treat and dispose off site. The material
4 would be excavated. It would be treated depending on its
5 nature. If it contained organics, it would be incinerated.
6 If it were containing metal wastes, then a technique called
7 solidification, which involves mixing something almost like
8 making cement. There are several additives that are
9 involved. The soil or the waste is mixed with these
10 additives and it sets up into a hard mass and water cannot
11 pass through it easily and it reduces the leaching by a very
12 large amount. Tiny amounts of materials can still pass
13 through into the ground water, but it reduces it by in many
14 cases greater than ninety percent. Sometimes greater than
15 ninety-nine percent depending on the technology.
16 Excavate, stabilize on-site and dispose of off-site.
17 It's essentially the same thing I talked about stabilization
18 but in this case rather than sending it off site for that
19 treatment it would be treated on site and then sent to the
20 disposal area.
21 Excavate, soil washing and dispose off site. The name
22 basically tells you what's happening there. The material is
23 mixed with water or water containing another solvent to help
24 disperse contaminants from the soil and then the soil is
25 separated and then that water needs to be treated.
28
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO 128Official Court Reporter
1 In s-itu stabilization. This is very similar to that
2 making cement type technology but instead of digging the
3 material up and mixing it in what we call a pug mill with
4 the additives. It is a machine that travels over the
5 surface and mixes these into the soil, sort of rototills it
6 into it and forms a solidified mass on the surface which
7 prevents leaching.
8 These technologies were looked at across the board for
9 all the different soil areas and to try to simplify things
10 as much as I could, areas that contained similar
11 contaminants EPA lumped into one group to try to deal with
12 those in their remedy selection for that area rather than
13 have to go through it over and over again for each area when
14 there were similarities.
15 The stress vegetation area is represented there and EPA
16 favors excavate, treat and dispose of off site. The stress
17 vegetation area contains very, very high levels of toxic
18 metals. I believe there was one sample at 50 thousand parts
19 per million of lead. EPA's action level is five hundred so
20 it's grossly in excess of what we would leave. That level
21 would generally demand treatment.
22 We combined the cornfields and the borrow area into one
23 unit because they both contained relatively low compared to
24 the stress vegetation area metals and other inorganic
25 contaminants and EPA's preferred alternative for this area
29
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter ARSOO i ? 9
1 is a soil, cover.
2 One thing EPA has to deal with is lead levels, and
3 there has been a controversial issue across the country.
4 EPA has had to make a lot of difficult decisions as to how
5 to set lead levels. There was a study done that I talked
6 with a citizens group where there is some indication if soil
7 outside a house is above two hundred parts per million, then»
8 that would pose an unacceptable risk. That is based on one
9 mathematical model. The standard mathematical model has
10 yielded safe levels for residential areas of five hundred.
11 We recently had a directive from our headquarters as of
12 right now that five hundred parts per million level is what
13 we should be using as a general rule.
14 The cornfields do contain other contaminants. They
15 contain mercury and they did have, if a child were living on
16 the site actually eating the soil there with no other
17 preventive measures, it did have unacceptable hazard indices
18 and did require action. But we believe that the soil cover
19 is adequate to prevent exposure. This area has not leached
20 metals into the ground water, and we believe that placing a
21 soil cover would prevent exposure by trespassing children
22 and is fully protected for this area.
23 The lagoon area undoubtedly was the worst area of the
24 site. Very large amounts of solvents were disposed there.
25 Very high levels of lead, chromium and other toxic metals
30
, WOfficial Court ReporterAlicia K. Wooters, RPR An500l30|«|
1 including- mercury were discovered there before the removal
2 action. Also samples taken not by Westinghouse but by EPA's
3 emergency response people showed a multitude of other
4 ' compounds. Different organic materials, phenyls, other
5 things at low levels.
6 During the RI a lot of that was not detected, but there
7 is still some risk there could be soil samples that wet
8 haven't found and the lagoon area does still contain
9 unacceptable levels of metals and an unacceptable hazard
10 index. EPA's preference is to excavate and treat and
11 dispose off site. This would involve taking about two feet
12 of soil from the lagoon area and sending it for off site
13 treatment disposal. Soils that contained volatiles would be
14 incinerated and soils that contained primarily metals would
15 be solidified.
16 Other alternatives that were evaluated is drum burial
17 area one, since all the waste had been taken out of there
18 and all the residue, all contamination remained, the only
19 thing evaluated was a low permeability cap to prevent
20 leaching through that material. Since the ground water
21 table is often above that level and because the levels are
22 relatively low compared to some of the contaminants that
23 Bruce already showed you that are very deep in the bedrock,
24 we believe that we should just deal with this efficiently
25 with one unit with the ground water.
31 AR500I3IAlicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 Drum, burial area two contaminants weren't detected and
2 for those soils we don't believe there is any additional
3 action warranted. Sediments in the east stream were
4 ' contaminated and we proposed removal of those sediments from
5 the east stream and from a very small section of the west
6 stream. The surface water does contain low levels of local
7 volatile organic hydrocarbons and it does contain particlesr
8 of metals that have washed down from these other
9 contaminated soil areas. We believe what will happen when
10 we take the mitigated measures for the other areas that will
11 be eliminated, the contaminated ground water will not
12 discharge to those streams and the metals will not be
13 transported by surface water run off. We believe no action
14 is needed at this time, and we will reappraise this after
15 the remedy is completed to make sure that hypothesis is "*
16 correct.
17 One other alternative was the cost of wetlands
18 replacement. This gives you an overview of what EPA is
19 proposing graphically. This is the east stream that travels
20 between the lagoon and the borrow area. This is the area
21 that contains the contaminant sediments. This is the lagoon
22 area. This is the stress vegetation area. The dotted areas
23 here, these kind of shaded areas are areas that EPA should
24 be excavated and treated off site and disposed of. This
25 area that's cross hashed, EPA believes is appropriate to
ARSOO IAlicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 place a aoil cover and one thing EPA is also proposing is•
2 these dotted lines were fairly arbitrary. Westinghouse
3 contractor never determined them by large amounts of
4 statistical sampling. They are fairly arbitrary in nature
5 and since clearly some run off could have occurred down
6 slope from these areas, that soil cover should be extended
7 over these areas.r
8 This is drum burial area one, no action. Drum burial
9 area two, no action and this is the section of the middle
10 stream that had low levels, low levels but levels that were
11 still of concern to EPA's biologist that we plan to also
12 remove. Because the stress vegetation area, the lagoon area
13 and this sediment right here, all are in the wetlands area.
14 Whenever one of EPA's remedies impacts the wetlands,
15 EPA is required to go back and replace the value of that
16 habitat. We coordinate with DOI and fish and wildlife
17 service and other agencies that have responsibilities for
18 wetlands and EPA is proposing creating an artificial
19 wetlands at the inlet to the middle stream and all this
20 probably needs to be is some excavation to create a shallow
21 area that will hold water after rain and can build up
22 cattails and other things and possibly when the soil cover
23 is reseeded it can be reseeded with vegetation that's
24 beneficial to wildlife.
25 Rather than drag you through all these individual
AR500I33Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 costs, le.t me come up with the total. The total for the
2 remedial action EPA is proposing is about nine point two
3 million dollars. It's detailed and broken out in the
4 proposed plan and a lot of things we talked about tonight
5 already have been summarized in the fact sheet.
6 At this point in time I'm done with my technical
7 presentation. I want to emphasize that EPA has not selected
8 this remedial action. This is what EPA believes are the
9 best alternatives for the site and it is soliciting comments
10 on these alternatives and this is why we are here tonight
11 and I .guess I'll turn it over to Virginia. Do you want to
12 say anything?
13 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: If you're ready for questions,
14 do you want to leave that up or do you want to turn that
15 over. I do have a couple of questions on cards, but first I "IP
16 would like to know if anyone in the audience has a question,
17 if you would like to stand and state your name and your
18 question or your comment for either Mr. Vavra or for Bruce
19 Rundell on their presentations this evening. If you have
20 any other questions as they specifically relate to the
21 Hunterstown Road Superfund Site.
22 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Yes, sir?
23 DON WADDELL: My name is Don Waddell, and I would
24 like to comment on the news press release for this meeting.
25 I don't know, I received my fact sheet yesterday. Merle
34
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR lit)Official Court Reporter ™
1 received -his today. Congressman Goodling did not receive
2 his at all yet. I think whoever sent them out done a poor
3 job. In the paper, I did not see it in the paper. Merle
4 told me last night it was in the paper that'you mentioned
5 back --
6 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Saturday the 24th of April it
7 was in two papers and then again on Monday in two papers.
8 DON WADDELL: And the night was wrong. In other
9 words, it mentioned Thursday night instead of tonight. I
10 think if we would have had the right information out ahead
11 of time, we would have had more people here, more concerned
12 citizens. What can I say, but I mean, I just got my fact
13 sheet yesterday. Congressman Goodling did not get his yet.
14 I called DC today and he did not have it. He did not know
15 anything about this meeting. He's on the mailing list.
16 Merle received his today, so I assume he'll receive his
17 tomorrow. That's a comment I'm very much concerned about.
18 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Appreciate the comment. They
19 were mailed out last week, and we'll certainly look into why
20 they weren't received before that. Does anyone else have
21 any comment or question, anything to add?
22 MERLE HANKEY: Merle Hankey. My question i.s for
23 Mr. Spontak of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
24 Resources. I'd like to know what DER's opinion of EPA's
25 proposed alternatives here and if you agree with what the
35
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 EPA proposes to do.
2 JIM SPONTAK: EPA sent us the draft proposed plan
3 several weeks ago. We had ample opportunity to review it.
4 It was reviewed by myself, my supervisor and hydrogeologist.
5 We have no — we are in agreement. Let's say it that way.
6 We are in agreement with their proposed plan. There are
7 certain limits and values we need to discuss with them but»
8 those will be handled in the design stage and in the ROD
9 stage, but basically we are in agreement with everything
10 they are proposing and the way they intend to do it.
11 MERLE HANKEY: And another question concerning'
12 what Mr. Vavra said is EPA's acceptable limits for lead,
13 what is DER's acceptable limits for lead?
14 JIM SPONTAK: That is still being worked on. We
15 have something called a lead task force who has been
16 wrestling with this problem for probably three years now.
17 We originally set the lead limits at two hundred but that
18 has been revised upward and it's still under discussion.
19 EPA used to go with a thousand parts per million lead level.
20 Now they drop it to five hundred. I can say personally five
21 hundred seems like a reasonable number because of the
22 exposure pathways here.
23 RESIDENT: Five hundred parts per million for
24 lead, what kind of standard are you quoting there?
25 JIM SPONTAK: I don't understand your question.
36 ARSOO I 36Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 .. RESIDENT: I thought you were talking about lead.
2 JIM SPONTAK: Yes, I am.
3 RESIDENT: What kind of standard are you quoting?
4 Did you say five hundred parts per million?' What kind of
5 standard are you quoting?
6 FRANK VAVRA: That's a policy for soils. Lead in
7 soils.
8 RESIDENT: Policy for soils.
9 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Any other questions? Yes, sir.
10 MERLE HANKEY: I have a whole lot. So, you know,
11 like it's going to be awhile if anybody else would like to
12 ask some questions.
13 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: I do have two cards that were
14 turned in. The first question is how do citizens get in
15 touch with, one, an EPA ombudsman and two the EPA inspector
16 general? Please explain their rights. I assume you mean
17 the people's rights. Who would like to take that?
18 " JEFFREY PIKE: The inspector general for EPA is
19 available for citizens who want to make a complaint or
20 whatever about actions that the agency is taking. I don't
21 have their number handy, but they do have an eight hundred
22 number. We can track that down and provide that to you if
23 you want to come up and ask us afterwards we'll get that.
24 Also our general number with our regional office can provide
25 that and that general number is 215-597-9800 and they can
37
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AnOUOI37Official Court Reporter
1 provide or connect you with the regional inspector general.
2 I'm not familiar with the EPA ombudsman process. I'm not
3 sure how I can address that.
4 AL PETERSON: That's out of headquarters and we'll
5 get you that number. Virginia will get it for you. I don't
6 think it's an eight hundred number, but we'll find a way for
7 you to get in touch with them.*
8 RESIDENT: Would you explain the rest of my
9 question? Explain their rights regarding the inspector
10 general and the ombudsman.
11 JEFFREY PIKE: I'm not familiar with the ombudsman
12 so I can't really explain that, but the rights being people,
13 any citizen can call and make a complaint.
14 MERLE HANKEY: Concerning?
15 JEFFREY PIKE: EPA actions.
16 RESIDENT: Could you explain their rights and what
17 the inspector general can do for them and what the ombudsman
18 can do for them?
19 JEFFREY PIKE: I'm not really that familiar what
20 they can and can't do. I don't really know how to address
21 your question.
22 AL PETERSON: Let me take a shot at it. The
23 inspector general, if you have a specific complaint that you
24 want to allege that we've been ineffective and we have been
25 unsatisfactory and we have been incomplete in our handling
38
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOOI38(|fcOfficial Court Reporter ^™
1 of something, they will take your allegations and
2 investigate them with any evidence that you have to provide
3 and check them against any documentation that we can offer
4 to substantiate what we have done and that's the inspector
5 generals job.
6 The ombudsman is a liaison between you and the agency
7 and they are a headquarters function. If you feel as a
8 citizen or as a citizens group feel you are not getting
9 adequate responsiveness from us, that we are not responding
10 to your concerns completely or adequately, that we're in any
11 way offending a citizens group or any of those kinds of
12 lines, the ombudsman will intervene and try to liaison
13 between the region and the citizens group.
14 Maybe we're not hearing something right, and the
15 ombudsman will come in as a totally disinterested third
16 party because as a region we may have something we proceeded
17 along a certain track and sometimes you get blinders on or
18 just because people are involved, the ombudsman can come in
19 as that third party and help bring your concerns to us so we
20 can start working more closely together.
21 RESIDENT: Do you have any idea where they could
22 call for this?
23 AL PETERSON: I do not know where it is right now.
24 It's a new person. He's only been in the job a couple of
25 months. I have not been in touch with the person myself,
39
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO 139Official Court Reporter
1 but we will get you a name and a phone number. If you want
2 to make sure that Virginia has your name and number and
3 we'll get it to you. We'll also get it in another fact
4 sheet for you. In case you're wondering who this guy is,
5 I'm Al Peterson and I'm her boss.
6 RESIDENT: What's your position?
7 AL PETERSON: I'm the chief of the superfund*
8 community relations section.
9 RESIDENT: Your telephone number?
10 AL PETERSON: 215-597-9905.
11 RESIDENT: Chief of?
12 AL PETERSON: Superfund Community Relations
13 Section.
14 ' VIRGINIA MOSELEY: I'll read the last card and
15 then we can go back to direct questions if that's all right. "P
16 The other question is, has the community been made aware of
17 and been provided with an ATSDR, one, community assistance
18 panel; two, health consultations; three, health assessments.
19 If not, why not and when?
20 FRANK VAVRA: ATSDR did what was called an SRU
21 which is a preliminary evaluation. After the feasibility
22 study they will then submit a complete health assessment
23 from their perspective. The SRU has been submitted. I
24 believe the health assessment has not been submitted.
25 MERLE HANKEY: What is the time frame for that
40
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO 1^0 AOfficial Court Reporter ^™
1 having to. be submitted?
2 FRANK VAVRA: I'm not responsible for that. ATSDR
3 works under a separate group. They periodically as they
4 • schedule reviews, they will request information or documents
5 from me and I provide those documents.
6 MERLE HANKEY: I understand that that's not your
7 responsibility that it is the ATSDR's responsibility butt
8 under SARA weren't they given a certain time frame they had
9 to provide these health studies or these studies be done.
10 JEFFREY PIKE: Yes, there was a time frame.
11 MERLE HANKEY: These studies were not done. They
12 did not follow the time frame.
13 JEFFREY PIKE: I know a lot of them are still
14 ongoing and they have had problems keeping up with the
15 schedule.
16 MERLE HANKEY: The health studies have been
17 initiated.
18 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: I would like to call on Felicia
19 Daley, who is a former employee of ATSDR and currently
20 working for EPA.
21 FELICIA DALEY: The ATSDR is a health assessment.
22 There is a difference between a health study and health
23 assessment. The health assessment, they are mandated by law
24 to have them out in a certain time frame but the time frame
25 is not mandated by SARA. The time frame was set by the
41
AliciaK. Wooters, RPR ARSOOIOfficial Court Reporter
1 agency. .They have not met those time frames. They are
2 behind in doing health assessments on all the sites that are
3 on the APL list. In terms of where they are in the process
4 ' for this particular site, I'm not sure, but they do take the
5 information that was gathered, the technical information
6 that's gathered by EPA and they look into that and assess
7 just from a public health standpoint. It's separate from
8 EPA so EPA has no bearing on it. They can't — all ATSDR
9 does is make recommendations to EPA or recommendations to
10 the state. It is not by law that EPA has to follow those
11 recommendations either. They just make recommendations on
12 things to protect the public health.
13 In terms of the health consultation process, that
14 process is not an automatic. It's different. What the
15 health consultation is is a quick usually one or two
16 question report that's done real fast to give an answer to
17 most times to EPA about a particular contaminate or
18 particular problem at a site. It's usually done in what's
19 called the emergency response phase if there's an emergency
20 response action at a Superfund Site. That has to come at
21 the request of either the state or EPA. It's not done
22 automatically across the board. A health consultation is
23 not done on every site but a health assessment is. When
24 they get them done they are behind, but they are by law
25 mandated to do a health assessment on all NPL sites.
42
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
3R500U2
1 - RESIDENT: Thank you. Miss Daley, can I follow-up" "2 on that because this is rather important. You mentioned,
3 Miss Daley, that the human health effects were the things
4 that were addressed but in point of fact ATSDR's mission is
5 to quote, mitigate adverse human health effects and
6 diminished quality of life resulting from exposure to
7 hazardous substances in the environment and that's the thing
8 we would like to see addressed at all superfund sites.
9 It fails to take in the health assessments to date, as
10 far as we know, have failed to take in the
11 psychopathological aspects of exposure, has nothing to do
12 with the MCL's or simply exposure to contaminants in their
13 environment and this so far as we know has not been
14 addressed. If it has been addressed at any EPA sites, we
15 would really like to know about it. We would like to see
16 that the second part of the mission where it says health
17 effects and diminished quality of life resulting from
18 exposure to hazardous substances of the environment, we
19 would like to see that action take place.
20 FELICIA DALEY: It's a separate agency, ma'am.
21 ATSDR is a separate agency from EPA.
22 RESIDENT: Working with EPA?
23 FELICIA DALEY: They work in conjunction but EPA
24 has no saying on the bearing of what happens at ATSDR and
25 vice versa.
43
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 40Official Court Reporter
1 - RESIDENT: They don't recommend to each other?
2 FELICIA DALEY: We recommend to EPA period.
3 RESIDENT: That's what I'm asking. You're with
4 EPA?
5 FELICIA DALEY: Now, yes.
6 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: We would be happy to continue
7 that, and I'm sure Miss Daley would make herself available*
8 after the meeting and give you some names and numbers so you
9 can address that to the appropriate people, and I thank you
10 for bringing that up. We will take care of that.
11 . FRANK VAVRA: Just before we leave the ATSDR
12 issue, Merle, you and Don should know in fact that's under
13 way. When I last met with you, I discussed the fact I had
14 spoken with ATSDR and in fact because of some of Don's
15 concerns, his personal concerns with his family, I made a
16 special phone call back in the office to the ATSDR
17 representative and asked them to include a specific
18 follow-up on the people that you thought might have been
19 impacted and they indicated when they did the health
20 assessment they would make those contacts.
21 DON WADDELL: Nobody has contacted us. That's the
22 point. At this point nobody knows anything about it.
23 MERLE HANKEY: My'concern was would there be a
24 recommendation from ATSDR before your ROD is given?
25 FRANK VAVRA: I think it's unlikely.
44
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR " "Official Court Reporter
ARSOOIM-
1 - MERLE HANKEY: Can you press for it?
,_,__ 2 FRANK VAVRA: I can go back to the office and
3 check the status.
4 MERLE HANKEY: I'd appreciate it.' This is
5 something we have been waiting for for a long time. We have
6 been coming to these meetings for ten years. I've aged a
7 hell of a lot in the last ten years. I'm still waiting for
8 this information and I haven't gotten it.
9 FRANK VAVRA: Jeff is probably going to kick me
10 under the table for this. Frankly, you look at the risk
11 assessment that was done with respect to this site, it's
12 this thick by people that have been knowledgeable about the
13 site for years. Frankly ATSDR has been criticized much in
14 the past because they don't have the manpower to really do a
15 full blown job on this and if you really believe that
16 putting somebody on this for a couple of weeks to take a
17 look at it is going to do a better job than the index risk
18 assessment that was done specifically for that site in very
19 great detail and reviewed by EPA's toxicologist, I don't
20 know — I don't know you're going to get anything superior
21 out of that. If you're looking for a higher level, I don't
22 think that's where you'll find it. I think the most
23 detailed risk assessment evaluation is the one that's been
24 mailed to you. That's a personal opinion.
25 MERLE HANKEY: If you want to give a personal
.45 •
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO IOfficial Court Reporter
1 opinion, several years ago the EPA stopped allowing the
2 responsible parties to do the risk assessment; isn't that
3 correct? I think there was a reason for that. It's like
4 the fox guarding the chicken house. They no longer allowed
5 responsible parties to do the risk assessments. Whether you
6 had people go over or not, I personally don't trust a risk
7 assessment that Westinghouse paid for. I want somebodyt
8 else's word on this other than Westinghouse. That's all I'd
9 like to see before a ROD is issued.
10 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: That is being entered in the
11 record.
12 JEFFREY PIKE: Can I follow up on that? You're
13 right, there has been a new policy, I think it's about a
14 year and a half, two years old that for all newer EPA will
15 do the risk assessment itself. The work done here was prior "P
16 to that or at least the order we're doing this work under
17 was prior to that. This risk assessment was done with
18 responsible parties but our toxicologist will have reviewed
19 that work and critique that and prior to the issuance of the
20 ROD because it is a responsible party produced risk
21 assessment, the toxicologist has to certify the risk
22 assessment. The EPA toxicologist.
23 MERLE HANKEY: Okay, thank you.
24 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Yes, sir.
25 KEN BIRD: My name is Ken Bird. Follow-up to Mr.
46
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 Waddell's- comment about the notice here. What is EPA's
2 policy about possibly extending the comment period? You
3 mentioned the site is very complex. People have just gotten
4 the fact sheet now. Some people probably just picked up the
5 remedy. Possibly extending it a few weeks to give people
6 some more time to look at this complex situation and how you
7 go about requesting EPA to do that.X
8 JEFFREY PIKE: We have a thirty day comment
9 period. There is a lot of material to review. If people
10 feel there is more material than amount of time they feel
11 they can put into looking at that, if you will send us a
12 request for an extension, we can grant a thirty day
13 extension.
14 I want to also add that we're trying to keep the
15 project moving. It has been a long time until this
16 information is available. Please consider whether you
17 really, need an extra 30 days for that. If we do receive the
18 request, and I think the address is on the handouts, we can
19 extend.
20 KEN BIRD: Somebody could say a month from today
21 or something which is not 30 days.
22 JEFFREY PIKE: What our policy is we extend the
23 period 30 days from the end of the original period, it would
24 be a total of 60 days if someone were to request an
25 extension. We are not in a habit of giving a five day
47
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 extension, or whatever. Thirty days or nothing.
2 KEN BIRD: I guess I have to write a letter to
3 request it.
4 DON WADDELL: Can't they request verbal tonight?
5 That's how it's been done in other meetings.
6 JEFFREY PIKE: I'm only hesitating, now. We
7 received a request last year from another site like that,
8 and we didn't get a comment from that person.
9 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: I want to remind you too that
10 copies of the plan have been made available tonight. They
11 are here, so you don't have to go to the library, copies of
12 the fact sheet which summarize very concisely what's in the
13 plan and also the names of the people and the addresses of
14 the people involved if you have any questions or comments.
15 Addressing the issue that people did receive these just ™P
16 recently, we do have a gentleman here from the press and I'm
17 sure the members of the community are going to be made well
18 aware of what's available and where it's available, and we
19 encourage everyone to comment. That's why we're coming out
20 here to get your comments. They don't have to be physically
21 present this evening. You can certainly call us, write us,
22 however you want to continue to comment on this. Does
23 anyone else have a question? We will remain. Do we have
24 more?
25 MERLE HANKEY: Yes.
48 ARSOO |i»8Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 - VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Okay, do you want to continue?
2 MERLE HANKEY: First of all, I'd like to ask you
3 several questions concerning some things that I may
4 understand and may not understand about your proposed plan
5 and the way some things are discussed in here. If you'd
6 like to look at your proposed plan or you might be able to
7 follow me on this. I'm on page two of the proposed plan and
8 it says as used in this plan "The Site" will mean the
9 Hunterstown Road Superfund Site which encompasses all
10 contaminated areas.
11 Now, I would like to know just exactly what does that
12 mean? Does that specifically mean the property that is
13 owned by Fred Shealer or will you consider the boundaries of
14 the site all areas that are also contaminated where the
15 ground water is contaminated?
16 FRANK VAVRA: That's a circular legal definition
17 that even in fact encompasses all areas contaminated.
18 MERLE HANKEY: It could be off of Fred Shealer's
19 property?
20 FRANK VAVRA: That's correct.
21 MERLE HANKEY: What specific rights by naming off
22 of Fred Shealer's property as part of the site, does that
23 give the EPA authority to go on that property and take
24 remedial action or do you have to have the approval of the
25 property owner? In other words, what I'd like to get at,
49
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter ARSOO I
1 what I understand about this, in your drawing here of drum
2 burial area number one, Frank, where this extends way ^|)
3 beyond—
4 FRANK VAVRA: The ground water plume.
5 MERLE HANKEY: The ground water plume, way beyond,
6 way beyond.
7 FRANK VAVRA: Yes.9
8 MERLE HANKEY: If you were to come in here, could
9 you put deed restrictions on these properties that are not
10 Fred Shealer's property? Can you prevent a property owner
11 who is not Fred Shealer and didn't do any dumping, can you
12 put deed restrictions on their properties to prevent them
13 from using the ground water?
14 FRANK VAVRA: Could it be done in theory
15 hypothetically, yes, but it's not EPA practice to do so. "P
16 EPA does have the authority to protect public health and can
17 issue a unilateral order under circumstances where they
18 cannot get cooperation in addressing the site. However,
19 that's just simply not the way EPA works with the public.
20 Typically where any of these sites, if there are responsible
21 parties, EPA compels the responsible parties to seek access
22 agreements.
23 MERLE HANKEY: To go into that a little bit
24 further, if you're a property owner of a Superfund Site, you
25 could potentially be a responsible party.
50
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 50 (|fcOfficial Court Reporter
1 .. FRANK VAVRA: No. No, I don't think so.
2 JEFFREY PIKE: I think in the grand scale, yes.
3 FRANK VAVRA: Right, but not with this particular
4 instance where you have ground water under those areas.
5 MERLE HANKEY: What I'm getting at, would EPA ever
6 invoke any kind of a rule or law that somebody who is not a
7 property owner where there was surface contamination but
8 only where there is ground water contamination, could they
9 be ever named as a responsible party, because they didn't
10 maybe completely agree with what EPA wants to come on their
11 property and could you invoke any kind of rights to come on
12 their property and do it?
13 FRANK VAVRA: If you called me up I'd pick up the
14 phone and call the lawyer on the site. I don't imagine EPA
15 would ever try to be that heavy handed. I can't speak for
16 every region and every person that works in the agency but
17 that would not be normal. That would be highly unusual.
18 " MERLE HANKEY: My area of concern with my
19 discussion on this is exactly the ground water plume as it's
20 leaving that drum burial area number one. You're testing,
21 as your testing has shown, your testing has only gone down
22 to what? Four hundred eighty-five feet approximately, in
23 that neighborhood?
24 FRANK VAVRA: Roughly five hundred feet.
25 MERLE HANKEY: The municipal authority wells in
51
Alicia K. Wooter-s, RPR AR50015IOfficial Court Reporter
1 the area-it's my understanding go down to a depth of eight
2 hundred feet.
3 FRANK VAVRA: The deepest well is eight hundred
4 feet.
5 . MERLE HANKEY: Potentially if there is a developer
6 in that area who is looking to develop the land next to that
7 site and if he can't hook on to municipal water, he's going
8 to have to drill his own wells and he might get into that
9 zone right there. Is there anything that the EPA can do to
10 protect or DER can do such as any type of land use
11 restrictions, restrictions on subdivisions or anything like
12 that to be sure that people in the future don't go out and
13 punch wells and bring water into people's homes, because you
14 know and I know we can't smell this stuff, we can't feel it,
15 we can't taste it. We don't know it's in the water. To
16 protect people maybe from realtors, developers whatever who
17 maybe know or don't know this Superfund Site is there.
18 There's a potential for development around these sites.
19 It's zoned residential.
20 FRANK VAVRA: I understand your concern. I tried
21 to follow-up on this with both the state and the local
22 officials. My understanding is there's really no one that
23 has the authority right now to put individual deed
24 restrictions on. The only way that could be accomplished is
25 EPA would have to probably issue a unilateral order to each
52
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 52Official Court Reporter
1 and every, person that was involved and my understanding is• '
2 to date that would be something totally new. That hasn't
3 been done except in extraordinary circumstances.
4 I think one of the problems is that the Gettysburg
5 municipality in talking to the director of development, it's
6 only recently even there were building codes placed in this
7 area. Before that there weren't. In some other localt
8 government structures it would be possible to do that. With
9 the Gettysburg situation, all the investigation I have done
10 to date leads me to believe that would not be an easy task
11 to accomplish.
12 JIM SPONTAK: Mr. Hankey, one of the things that
13 other municipalities have been doing is if a developer comes
14 in and wants to develop an area and put in 20 houses on a
15 parcel, the localities pass an ordinance that he has to
16 demonstrate that he has potable water available for the
17 residence. Before he sinks his well, he would have to sink
18 another well there, bring up some water, have it tested for
19 all the parameters we're interested in before he's allowed
20 to supply that water to the homes. That is something that
21 the local municipalities here could pass. That's an
22 ordinance that could be locally promulgated.
23 MERLE HANKEY: That would only be good in the case
24 of a private developer. If it were someone going in and
25 drilling their own well, they may not know to do this.
53
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR -- J||Official Court Reporter ^'"
ARSOQI53
1 - JIM SPONTAK: That's correct. I believe Frank, to
2 the local municipalities saying there are contaminations in
3 this area. That's why the public information process is
4 ' going on. We're trying to make the public aware
5 contamination does exist in this area.
6 RESIDENT: Can you tell me why EPA, I mean a
7 government agency initiates policies all the time and given»
8 the seriousness and the credibility, what Mr. Hankey is
9 asking here, why couldn't EPA instigate and implement a
10 policy such as the Maryland general assembly just within the
11 last weeks passed legislation requiring the sellers of
12 single family homes to have a disclosure statement attached
13 which has relationship to telling them what's in the area.
14 If there's even a landfill in the area or any kind of
15 hazardous or regulated materials in the area. EPA could
16 certainly based on the knowledge you have and especially you
17 know where all the sites are. If you initiated a policy to
18 require this and then that would give a blanket protection
19 in all Superfund Site communities.
20 Mr. Hankey has a valid point and I support it. It's
21 very difficult for multiple municipalities around the state
22 to get into. It would take years if ever for this to happen
23 but you have the capability of relieving this situation fpr
24 everyone. Could you consider that?
25 JEFFREY PIKE: We will take that back as an issue.
54
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOOOfficial Court Reporter
1 I think to date the agency has used the approach it's a
_] 2 local governmental issue for them to look into these
3 restrictions but it is an issue I'm sure comes up many
4 ' times. We will raise it as an issue to our ground water
5 policy makers.
6 RESIDENT: Jeff, you're United States
7 Environmental Protection Agency, why don't you invoke your
8 powers to protect blanketly? Just blanket everybody with
9 that protection rather than waiting for municipalities to do
10 it who may never do it and then leave people at risk.
11 BRUCE RUNDELL: One thing to consider is that
12 we're an agency and we're governed by the laws that the
13 federal government write for us and that's where our
14 authority comes from. In our federal system, the federal
15 government does not assume all responsibility for ™P
16 everything. They delegate certain things to the states and
17 to the local authorities. Your example of Maryland, it was
18 the Maryland State Legislature, the congressional body that
19 made the state law. It wasn't the Maryland Department of
20 Environmental Protection. It was a law passed. There is a
21 difference between policy and law. For the EPA or any
22 government agency to go out and in a sense put restrictions
23 on private property without the consent of the property
24 owners, we would get in a lot of trouble for that. It's
25 really a legal issue about property rights that needs to be
55
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR _.JuOfficial Court Reporter ^™
AR500I55
1 addressed by legal elected authorities whether it's state,
2 local or federal.
3 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: I thank you for your comments
4 and I certainly think they are very well taken and they have
5 been entered into the record. I would like to bring the
6 discussion back once again to Hunterstown Road Superfund
7 Site which in fact is the reason we are here this evening,
8 and as I said, those comments have been entered in the >9 record.
10 DON WADDELL: I think all these comments are
11 related to the site.
12 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: I hear you talking about policy
13 in general.
14 DON WADDELL: I think basically we're concerned
15 about what we have gone through and we are concerned about
16 correcting this in the future for future sites and so on. I
17 think it all pertains to the site. Okay, go on. Move on.
18 Unlike the Westinghouse site public meeting you had the
19 monitoring wells all placed and the additional wells all
20 pinpointed. This particular plan does not. I have trouble
21 figuring out why that was not completed before you had this
22 meeting.
23 FRANK VAVRA: I think one of the things you have
24 to recognize, Don, is at the Westinghouse plant site, Bruce
25 talked about this earlier, and again I didn't want to get-
56 ARSOO 156Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 too bogged down in technical details of each particular~1 ' 'i_| 2 remedy because there was so much to cover.
3 However, at the Hunterstown Road site, we have a
4 downgradient where at the Westinghouse plant site we had an
5 upgradient. It was a relatively simple situation to look at
6 the Westinghouse plant site and know exactly where we had to
7 place some pumping wells which were fairly limited in naturet
8 right along in that contaminated bedding plane and then to
9 create some wells off site to capture where it escaped the
10 first capture zone.«.
11 However, although it's indicated in the ROD, you'll
12 notice where those locations are indicated there is a
13 caveat. This became an issue with Westinghouse because
14 there had been a graphical glitch in one of the scales on
15 that drawing. However, at the very bottom of that there was
16 a qualifier that said this is merely conceptual and that the
17 actual locations were to be determined during remedial
18 design.
19 This situation is much more complicated than the plant.
20 At the plant site the bedding planes that Bruce talked about
21 were pointed down like this. Because it was next to a
22 creek, it appeared to be in a discharge zone. We had
23 greater pressures at depth in many of the units than we did
24 higher. This indicates that water was flowing up
25 discharging to the creek. In discussions with USGS, they
57
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AR500I57|||Official Court Reporter ^~
1 confirmed that and said they weren't at all surprised by
2 that. The net effect was it tended to limit the downward
3 migration of contamination and moved it upward.
4 In this situation, we have contamination at great depth
5 and while we have quite a few wells in the area, we don't
6 have enough wells to absolutely pin down exactly what the
7 plume looks like and its exact extent and we're going to
8 have to see how the aquifer responds there after we get some
9 wells in.
10 This design for Hunterstown Road site because of
11 complexity is likely to iterative. We will place wells. We
12 will see what happens. We're probably going to have to
13 adjust well locations, add additional wells as it
14 progresses. It was actually at my direction to Westinghouse
15 that I asked them not to place those wells for the reason of
16 technical uncertainty at this point in time. We are not in
17 agreement. To come to an agreement where wells will be
18 placed will probably involve several meetings with our
19 geologist and Westinghouse and the other PRP's to decide
20 where these wells should be placed to affect the capture
21 zones we want to do. This is going to have to be determined
22 during remedial design and it's somewhat iterative.
23 Also, placement of wells often it's not just one place
24 that you can go to. Some of these wells are likely to
25 involve other people's properties. I see no point in
58
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 58Official Court Reporter
1 putting a- well on a map that's likely to change in getting
2 some property owner upset about its location. We're going
3 to have to design these. We're going to interact with the
4 community and find out what are the acceptable locations and
5 where we can do this without causing someone too much —
6 DON WADDELL: Some of those wells may have to be
7 drilled in the Twin Oaks area. That's the development
8 there, because that's the way the plume is moving.
9 MERLE HANKEY: Southwest.
10 DON WADDELL: It's going to surface somewhere. In
11 my understanding through discussions with you and different
12 other people, it's going to surface probably in around the
13 Rock Creek area, which is immediately behind Twin-Oaks; is
14 that correct?
15 FRANK VAVRA: I'd have to have a map showing the "*
16 Twin Oaks development. I don't think so. The USGS —
17 DON WADDELL: Twin Oaks is between the plume now
18 and Rock Creek.
19 FRANK VAVRA: If I'm sounding stupid, Bruce,
20 correct me. This is kind of the planes that we talked
21 about. The idea is that let's say this here area in blue is
22 drum burial area one. The idea is that it would move down
23 through that hydrogeologic unit and eventually reemerge.
24 This depth from what you're talking about would probably be
25 the Twin Oaks development where we believe it's too deep,
59 AR500I59Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 but I'll Jrreely say we need more wells. We need to know
2 that. At this point in time that plume has not been closed.
3 It has to be.
4 As part of the proposed plan we talked-about
5 identifying this area with the help of USGS is either doing
6 the work or providing oversight and direction to the PRP's
7 who conduct this study and we will identify this dischargeX
8 area and we'll place monitoring wells down in that area.
9 USGS said that also most of this may be going so deep it
10 will take a very, very long time period to emerge. It may
11 not even have gotten there yet.
12 JIM SPONTAK: That discharge area may be many,
13 many miles away from that. I think I know where you're
14 talking about. That isn't that far away.
15 DON WADDELL: Then you go many, many miles that
16 you're talking about, then you're talking about Gettysburg
17 municipal wells, because they are two mile away.
18 FRANK VAVRA: We also looked at that and consulted
19 with USGS and the well, I guess it's well number five that's
20 south along Hunterstown Road, that was the only one close
21 enough to be of immediate concern and they believed that it
22 was too far. I think it's too far to the east of that.
23 It's on the same side of the ROD as the lagoon and the
24 bedding plane dips go this way. The municipal wells will be
25 pulling water from an area over here.
60
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
ARSOOI 60
1 .. MERLE HANKEY: Quarter of a mile from where you
2 said it may surface, which is two wells and one Gettysburg
3 municipal authority is using right now is not well number
4 five.
5 FRANK VAVRA: We can talk, you can show me on a
6 map what your concern is. We looked at the well locations
7 that we know about to date. I understand they were placingf
8 some new wells when I talked to the MUA and they told me
9 those were far away from the area of contamination. In
10 fact, we sent them a map showing the corridors of
11 contamination. We were concerned about either development
12 or placement of industrial park or any new municipal wells.
13 My understanding is they stayed far away from those areas in
14 placing their new wells, but I could certainly get you more
15 information on that after the meeting and follow-up on the "IP
16 issue.
17 MERLE HANKEY: Page five and six of the plan you
18 discuss the site environmental history. Back when you did
19 the removal—
20 FRANK VAVRA: I'm sorry?
21 MERLE HANKEY: Page five and six. Back when you
22 did the drum removal area from the burial areas, it says
23 here that Westinghouse used an air stripper and discharged
24 the treated water into the middle and west streams. Was
25 that treated water water containing volatiles? What did
61
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AR500I6I fitOfficial Court Reporter "™
1 that watej: contain?
" 2 FRANK VAVRA: That contained volatiles. I believe
3 it was discharged into the west stream which merges with the
4 middle stream. I don't believe it was directly discharged.
5 MERLE HANKEY: Did they require any permits to do
6 that?
7 FRANK VAVRA: Yes.t
8 MERLE HANKEY: Did they obtain those permits?
9 FRANK VAVRA: They got the limits from DER. Shaun
10 Rosenberger was the project officer at that point.
11 MERLE HANKEY: Did that require an MPD's permit?
12 FRANK VAVRA: I think it's equivalent.
13 MERLE HANKEY: With MPD is there is a public
14 comment period? In fact, until I got this I didn't even
15 know it was done out there. I didn't know there was a
16 discharge into the stream out there.
17 FRANK VAVRA: The MPD's permitting requirement
18 takes a lot of work to get that and often years to do that.
19 If the people had to go through that to discharge a small
20 amount of water as we did this remedial work, none of these
21 sites would ever get cleaned up, Merle.
22 JIM SPONTAK: There is a waiver under the law says
23 they just have to meet the substantial requirements of
24 permit. They don't have to get the permit. They have to
25 meet the limits. As long as we approve the limits, that's
62
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter ARSOO I 62
1 fine and -it was only done on a temporary basis as Frank
2 said.
3 MERLE HANKEY: I was concerned about that. I
4 didn't know it was done over there. It was my understanding
5 that the stuff was hauled off site.
6 FRANK VAVRA: No.
7 MERLE HANKEY: To another facility.
8 KEN BIRD: Could I clarify that? The water we're
9 talking about, Mr. Hankey, is the hole was dug and the drums
10 were taken off site, any water in excavation was taken off
11 site. . It was left open for a couple of years and it filled
12 with water. That is the water they are talking about
13 discharging. It wasn't any water during the actual removal
14 action. The hole was left open in both one and two. That
15 is when it was taken off site a couple years later. It was
16 treated with the air stripper.
17 MERLE HANKEY: I don't believe it was several
18 years. Several years means two years.
19 KEN BIRD: I don't know, a year later. I don't
20 know exact date.
21 FRANK VAVRA: I believe it was a year and a half.
22 BRUCE RUNDELL: I think the point is it was
23 treated before it was put in the streams. Run through the
24 air strippers.
25 MERLE HANKEY: It was my understanding that
63
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 anything -that came into those drum burial areas as far as
2 leaching into those areas were removed off site in tank
3 trucks. I didn't know anything had been stripped on the
4 ' site and until I read this it was news to me, and I was just
5 wondering how it took place and what exactly was in the
6 water that was treated.
7 DON WADDELL: In the feasibility study, it talkedf
8 about the borrow area indicating about asbestos and
9 indicated that several feet of cover was put on and then
10 during the RI they said that they sampled it and there was
11 no asbestos. However, in the feasibility study they said it
12 was. How deep did they go whenever they took their samples,
13 their second set of samples?
14 FRANK VAVRA: My understanding of chronology is
15 there was a removal action. First there were large piles
16 taken away, and I believe there was a subsequent removal
17 action where some residual was taken away and then there was
18 about four inches, four inches of straw and two inches of
19 soil. There was a relatively small amount of cover placed
20 over top of plastic tarp. This was done by the removal
21 group.
22 The sampling that was done in the borrow area, it was
23 various levels, many of those were near the surface and
24 you're probably correct they should have been taken deeper
25 and in fact I think I've even discussed that in the proposed
64 AR500I61*Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 plan in the background. I was not aware of that at that
2 point in time that that cover had been placed and
3 unfortunately the documents were in the removal group
4 ' apparently not in the file room when I was doing the
5 sampling locations. Those materials were probably, I will
6 admit, probably most of those samples were taken from too
7 shallow a horizon. I discovered that later on and it's part
8 of my decision to include that borrow area as part of the
9 soil cover to make sure that there is enough safety factor
10 there for the amount of residual asbestos that's left there.
11 A soil cover is fully protective and that's what would be
12 done in most cases for asbestos contamination.
13 MERLE HANKEY: This is concerning drum burial area
14 one behind Fred Shealer's house. What you say here on page
15 eight at the top is TCE present in ground water at 26
16 thousand parts per billion but the highest level in soil
17 currently is nine hundred forty parts per billion. The
18 gasoline constituents, xylenes and ethylbenzene are present
19 in soils at higher levels than TCE but are not contaminating
20 the ground water.
21 What would have been the source of the xylenes and
22 ethylbenizene and have the underground fuel storage tanks
23 been removed.
24 FRANK VAVRA: The xylenes were at the bottom of
25 the pit. They are unrelated in my opinion to Fred Shealer's
65
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 65Official Court Reporter
1 tanks on -his active property. As you know that was brought
2 to my attention by Mary Kennedy approximately a year and a
3 half ago, and I followed up with our underground storage
4 tank program and they contacted the state. 'EPA does not
5 have enforcement authority for Fred's property. It's not
6 part of the Superfund Site.
7 We have wells located that would intercept
8 contamination emanating from Fred's property down to the
9 ground water table and in fact that was looked at to see if
10 in fact that could have been a cause. You can look, in
11 fact, .some of the wells are even delegated S. I believe FS
12 for Fred, Fred Shealer. They actually were trying to see if
13 his property could have been causing some of the
14 contamination behind there and we do not find those oily
15 contaminants. Those are very common contaminants,
16 constituents in gasoline. All the petroleum companies add
17 very large amounts of xylenes and toluene in gasoline to
18 bring the octane up.
19 MERLE HANKEY: What would have been the source of
20 them in the pit? Did any of the responsible parties have
21 that in their waste streams?
22 FRANK VAVRA: If I had to take a wild guess, I
23 wouldn't be surprised if in'fact Fred Shealer was the source
24 of that. It could have been old drums of gasoline or oil or
25 something of that nature.
66
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AnSOOI66Official Court Reporter
1 -MERLE HANKEY: Since this isn't your
2 responsibility as to whether the tanks have been removed or '
3 not it falls into the lap of DER then, doesn't it?
4 . FRANK VAVRA: They have enforcement authority.
5 MERLE HANKEY: I'll direct my question to Mr.
6 Spontak. Mr. Spontak, do you have any information as to
7 whether those tanks have been removed?t
8 JIM SPONTAK: None whatsoever.
9 MERLE HANKEY: Can you find out?
10 JIM SPONTAK: I can find out if they are
11 registered and what information we have on file about his
12 tanks.
13 DON WADDELL: As you know, Frank, I am very much
14 concerned about your recommendation for the cornfield. You
15 received a letter that I wrote sometime last year voicing my
16 concerns. On page ten next to the last paragraph, quote,
17 "EPA usually considers remedial action necessary for soil
18 areas based on future use." Would you explain that, what
19 that means?
20 FRANK VAVRA: What that means is that, for
21 instance, if EPA, if there are MCL, maximum contaminant
22 level violations of drinking water where contaminants are in
23 drinking water on a property, they are not outside that
24 property. No one outside that property is using that
25 drinking water and no one seems to have contaminated wells,
67
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AnOUUlQ7Official Court Reporter
1 even if the property owner doesn't plan to use that wateri—̂ x
2 for drinking water, we would still generally try to mitigate
3 aquifer contamination and reach those standards.
4 It's a similar concept on the Hunterstown Road site in
5 that we have contaminants on the site in the lagoon
6 vegetation area and cornfields that right now are not
7 impacting people. People surrounding that site are not
8 impacted by the soils based on the calculations and the risk
9 assessment. However, if someone were to live there without
10 taking any additional mitigating measures, then they would
11 be exposed to unacceptable risk and this is why we have
12 triggered action and it's the basis for the remedies we're
13 proposing.
14 DON WADDELL: My understanding of that statement
15 is entirely different than yours. I thought it meant that
16 you would consider the future use of the soil. In other
17 words,, like I said in my letter, turn it back to its
18 intended use, farm lands and whatever and EPA does not
19 consider that in their decision. What it was used for
20 before?
21 FRANK VAVRA: EPA does consider that. We are to
22 weigh that against other factors. We do consider, we do
23 consider future use. The future use I was referring to and
24 the way it was used in that paragraph is in the discussion
25 of risk.
68 ARSOO I 68Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 For -instance, if you go to the risk assessment, they
2 look at risk from a multitude of scenarios. They can look
3 at risk to off-site residents. They can look at near site
4 residents. They can look at people living on the site if
5 nothing were done. They can look at children. They can
6 look at young children because the risks across the board
7 are not the same for everyone. Children are more sensitive/ f
8 to certain contaminants.
9 What I was referring to with future use, the future use
10 scenario where somebody actually lived on the site and how
11 that blends into risk and why I have to take an action.
12 Essentially it's laying out the justification for taking
13 action. EPA also considers in its decisions the future use
14 of that property and weighs that against the cost of
15 restoring that property to its past use.
16 MERLE HANKEY: We're going to get into a
17 discussion about future use of the ground water and the
18 associated risk. According to the statement on page eleven,
19 the highest site risks from ground water use are derived
20 from a future use scenario with children drinking the water
21 from wells in the most contaminated portions of the plumes
22 on the Shealer property. Does that mean the plumes on the
23 Shealer property or does that mean the plumes that are now
24 off of the Shealer property?
25 FRANK VAVRA: That's assuming that if we placed —
69 . AR500I69Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 do you remember the graphs that Bruce had that showed the
2 contaminant levels and it showed the heart of contamination.
3 The highest levels, that risk assessment assumed that you
4 popped the well in the very worst part of that plume. You
5 found the most contaminated portion of ground water and you
6 had those children drinking that ground water.
7 MERLE HANKEY: Whether it be on the Shealer»
8 property or off Shealer property?
9 FRANK VAVRA: Right. In either case.
10 MERLE HANKEY: You can put institutional controls
11 on Fred Shealer's property but as we discussed before,
12 you're going to have a lot harder time placing institutional
13 controls off of Fred Shealer's property and what my concern
14 was with this, are they taking in the possible future use
15 into their future use scenario that they are not going to be
16 on Fred Shealer's property with these institutional
17 controls, they are going to be off site, off property?
18 FRANK VAVRA: Of course. All this is trying to do
19 is point out the maximum risk because EPA looks at these
20 areas for trigger levels and all this is doing is it's
21 pointing out where the ground water contamination is well
22 above the trigger levels that would mobilize EPA to t.ake
23 action for that ground water plume.
24 It's stating here's the worst case, it's really bad.
25 We have got to do something. That's all it's saying. It's
70
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
ARSOOI 70
1 not saying the off site water doesn't have to be remediated.
2 It's not saying that children drinking the off site water |̂|)
3 would be okay. It's just showing that we have got a very
4 strong trigger for action. That is all the point that's
5 making.
6 JIM SPONTAK: If I can add something to that. One
7 of the comments the state made, we wanted the ground water
8 remediated to its background quality and EPA put that in the
9 plan for us. As technologically feasible it can be done.
10 You can't pump water up for seven hundred, eight hundred,
11 nine hundred feet, you can't do it. They will try to
12 remediate the ground water until the contamination is gone.
13 I think that's what you're getting at.
14 MERLE HANKEY: Well, I looked at this and I sawill15 your calculations and how you came up with a hazard index ~™
16 and I was just concerned, because I'm not totally
17 understanding of all of this, but I can read what is here
18 and what I had read was that my understanding that this
19 concern, the portion of the plume on the Shealer property
20 which we know you can put institutional controls on for the
21 use of ground water and there is a water line in that
22 neighborhood but there are people that could possibly buy
23 property out there and develop it and use that property and
24 I just wondered if that was also taken into consideration in
25 the calculations.*
71 . AR500I7IAlicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 .. FRANK VAVRA: It says all water contaminated above
2 background and above eight hundred feet in depth.
3 MERLE HANKEY: In your summary of alternatives,
4 the. feasibility study reviewed a variety of•technologies to
5 determine if they were applicable to the contamination at
6 the site. Who determined what technologies were to be
7 considered? In other words, Westinghouse contractor, were
8 they given a list of all possible alternatives, the
9 technologies to use for ground water remediation, for soil
10 remediation or did they just have a list from somewhere
11 else.
12 In other words, were all the possible, were all the
13 possibilities explored, all the innovative technologies
14 explored. You were given a certain amount of technologies
15 to remediate the soil, a certain amount of technologies to
16 remediate the water. If it's going to take thirty years to
17 remediate the water or longer, that's too long. If there's
18 another technology that might be faster, it could be
19 explored. What I was wondering is or what I'd like to know
20 is where did Westinghouse come up with their -- or their
21 contractor come up with the list of alternatives? From
22 looking at their list of alternatives, they don't have all
23 the latest innovative technologies listed there.
24 FRANK VAVRA: What do you mean by latest
25 innovative technology? What do you have in mind?
72
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter ARSOO i 72
1 .MERLE HANKEY: The EPA has a group called the
2 superfund innovative technology evaluation program.
3 FRANK VAVRA: That's a site program and
4 essentially what the site program is, I wouldn't quite call
5 it experimental technologies but those are technologies that
6 are under development and there are cases where the site
7 program identifies a technology they want to test out and in
8 fact they will send bulletins across the regions to see if
9 we have certain sites that fit a category.
10 Also if an RPM reads there a certain technology that
11 has promise, they can contact the office of research and
12 development. I think you have to be reasonable in what is
13 expected in the feasibility study. There were numerous
14 technologies that were evaluated. I think all the major
15 classes were. I can't guarantee that every single
16 technology that's possible was evaluated but what I can tell
17 you is I looked through the screening process and all the
18 major ones that have potential in my opinion for this site
19 were looked at. If they weren't, we don't have to stay with
20 those. We would have included something in the comments to
21 add something to those.
22 DNAPLs and fractured bedrock, pump and treat are still
23 the way people are attacking this. There is a lot of talk
24 about biotechnology but that's far from proven and in a
25 fractured bedrock system you have to inject nutrients down
73
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR fl ft K ft ft i -70Official Court Reporter Hfl^UUl /J
1 there and you can't control that very well.
2 All this is detailed in the feasibility study and I
3 think Riso did a pretty good job of listing the major
4 ' technologies, and I agreed with the general reasons for
5 screening out the ones that were screened out.
6 There is also citizens as well as wanting innovative
7 technology you have to also be concerned about the^
8 reliability and the proven track record of the remedy
9 selected for the site. Yes, we want to select innovative
10 technology where it looks promising and has a good chance of
11 success, but your neighborhoods are not experimental
12 programs. I have to as project manager make sure things are
13 selected that have a good probability of being successful.
14 - MERLE HANKEY: It seems we're guinea pigs. We
15 drank the water and stuff. Now everybody is going to wait
16 and see what happens to us. My main concern, was every
17 possibility explored? I think you answered that, if you
18 were satisfied.
19 FRANK VAVRA: I was satisfied with what was looked
20 at. I want to add, we had meetings with Westinghouse and
21 Paul Riso and we essentially told them in addition to the
22 things they looked at, we had certain things we definitely
23 wanted them to include. Westinghouse wasn't necessarily in
24 agreement in all the things we wanted to look at either.
25 Yes, we were certainly involved in the process.
74
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR flR^Ofl I 7 ItOfficial Court Reporter HnaUUI /4
1 .. MERLE HANKEY: On page 15 under ground water
2 alternatives, you may have discussed this before, but I'm
3 not exactly sure how this is going to be done. At the
4 ' bottom of page 15 in talking about the remediation of ground
5 water at the very bottom, "Only if the very deep ground
6 water re-emerges and discharges at usable well depths far
7 from the site would it pose a threat. EPA plans to addressr
8 this issue as part of the remedial action monitoring well
9 network. If contaminated ground water does surface and
10 discharge, it could then be captured and treated at
11 reasonable depth."
12 My question here is how would this be determined? How
13 would you know that the stuff is re-emerging? How will you
14 know when it's re-emerging and where it's re-emerging just
15 by your monitoring well network? ™r
16 FRANK VAVRA: No. We had USGS review this. The
17 person that reviewed it, Charles Wood, has extensive
18 background in the Gettysburg formation. He's helped
19 municipalities locate its municipal wells. He's written
20 books and articles on the Gettysburg formation. He
21 understands it pretty well.
22 EPA, because they are concerned about this type of
23 issue, has number one, for our site, we consulted with them
24 and we got advice to what the ultimate discharge points
25 might be. They suggested to us technical means for
Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 identifying those areas and as I stated earlier either USGS
2 will do that work and they can do it pretty modestly or the
3 PRP's will do the work and USGS will be looking over their
4 shoulder to identify those areas. Then monitoring wells
5 would be placed in that area where USGS and EPA
6 hydrogeologists believe has a high probability of
7 re-emerging, we would try to identify that area. If in fact
8 you would find contamination, then it might be necessary to
9 place a pumping system at that point. We know that it's
10 escaping. We know it's going down the great depth. We plan
11 as part of monitoring requirements of proposed alternative,
12 we would identify that area and try to take appropriate
13 action.
14 MERLE HANKEY: My concern here is that if there is
15 a possibility that it could pose a threat that you find it
16 in time.
17 On page 16, "Common elements of all ground water
18 remedies" that paragraph where you talk about deed
19 restrictions on the Shealer property. Just what exactly
20 would those deed restrictions be?
21 FRANK VAVRA: The deed restriction would be
22 primarily for the use of ground water on his property and if
23 in fact this proposed plan were to be accepted and issued as
24 a record decision unchanged, it would probably also place
25 restrictions on any areas that were covered by the soil
76
, wOfficial Court ReporterAlicia K. Wooters, RPR A/?50f1 I 7C
1 cover. He simply couldn't use that area as farmland or
2 something else. Essentially the soil covers would be
3 reseeded. There would be a fence enclosing those areas to
4 prevent damage by our recreational vehicles or whatever. It
5 would lock them out and it would be reseeded. We would
6 relandscape around the fence with shrubs or something like
7 that to try to buffer it for the neighborhood. Those are
8 the type things.
9 MERLE HANKEY: It will be green but it won't be
10 clean in other words?
11 FRANK VAVRA: Clean is a relative term, Merle. We
12 have to look when we select — we have to look when we
13 select these at the amount of risk reduction we're getting
14 for the dollar spent. If you're talking between two million
15 and 19 million to try to remediate to take that away and "P
16 fill the landfill up with the huge amount of cubic yards at
17 that site, removing it from one place to another, it just
18 doesn't make a lot of sense. You're not getting a risk
19 reduction for the dollar on that.
20 MERLE HANKEY: I think personally if a company
21 like Westinghouse comes out and they come out and they have
22 somebody dispose of waste on someone else's property or
23 however it ended up out there on Shealer's property that the
24 stuff ought to be removed from the site. I think that would
25 give Westinghouse and all the other companies that might
77
, WOfficial Court ReporterAlicia K. Wooters, RPR • p c n n i 77411
1 think in -the future about doing something like that not be
2 given an alternative like, okay, well instead of having to
3 spend 15 million dollars to remove the stuff from the site
4 like it should be done, we're only going to-have to pay
5 point zero three million dollars and cover it up with dirt
6 and plant grass on it and not have to worry about it.
7 I think that if the EPA gets tough enough or I'm sorry
8 if you had laws tough enough, you could enforce some of
9 these things. Maybe a lot of these companies wouldn't do
10 this kind of thing in the future. I think some of these
11 companies should be made examples of. The people in the
12 neighborhoods, whether they own that property or whether
13 they live around it shouldn't have to live with that stuff
14 there. They've lived with it in the neighborhoods for over
15 20 years. Now it's time for it to be gotten ride of. Let
16 it go back to Westinghouse or the other companies. Let them
17 put it. on their lands and cover it with a geonet and put
18 grass on it and let them babysit it for the next 50 years,
19 but I think it ought to be gotten out of our neighborhoods.
20 FRANK VAVRA: Your problem and your frustration go
21 back to some of the discussions we have had in the past.
22 You really believe there should be two standards. You
23 appreciate in situations where there's no -- when identified
24 the tax payer money in many cases needs to be considered and
25 you do have to look at the risk reduction for the amount of
78
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AnOUuI78Official Court Reporter
1 money spent, but where you have a company there really
2 should be no limits even if it's an old tire, they should
3 have to take it away. That's not the way EPA policy works.
4 There is one set of limits based on risk. We have to follow
5 that policy both on enforcement sites and on Superfund
6 sites.
7 MERLE HANKEY: I understand. I'm sorry. I blowf
8 up sometimes but ten years has taken a toll on me. To get
9 into a discussion about the geonet, just exactly how does
10 the geonet work and what does it do?
11 FRANK VAVRA: The geotextile, what we're putting
12 down, it's essentially a plastic cloth. Its purpose is not
13 to prevent water from moving through it. In fact., it should
14 be permeable. It's supposed to be permeable. What it does
15 for me as project manager, I look at a soil cover and if we ™P
16 put a foot and a half soil on top of this geotextile which
17 is visually, you can tell that from soil, my concern is we
18 could put a soil cover if the PRP's would not maintain that
19 soil cover properly over time it could be eroded. How do
20 you tell that? I mean, you're not going to be able to go
21 out there with a survey routinely day after day and tell in
22 fact it eroded and now the other soil is exposed. So the
23 purpose of this is by placing that geotextile over the area
24 before the soil cover is placed if you can see, if you can
25 see the geotextile, then that means that you've gotten down
79
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR A R 5 0 0 I 7 9j| fcOfficial Court Reporter
1 and your -soil cover is eroded and it needs maintenance.
2 It's a visual indicator. Like a soil cover has been damaged
3 and eroded. That's the purpose.
4 MERLE HANKEY: Does the geonet get put down over
5 bare ground? On these sites you have vegetation. You have
6 shrubs. You have plant life. You have trees. Is all that
7 stuff taken off there before the geonet is put down?
8 FRANK VAVRA: No. They are going to have to do
9 some site preparation.
10 MERLE.HANKEY: Disturbing the site?
11 FRANK VAVRA: There will be some benefit to that
12 because what will happen, they do the earth moving, it's
13 going to move some of that material around. The highest
14 levels within one or two feet of surface and as they —
15 MERLE HANKEY: Seventy-two inches is pretty
16 contaminated, down to seventy-two inches also you know.
17 FRANK VAVRA: Maybe isolated. Not on an average,
18 Merle. The material would be taken away. The vegetative
19 cover removed and then regraded and then the geotextile
20 placed on top of that and then the soil cover laid down.
21 MERLE HANKEY: You know how I feel. I don't like
22 the geonet. I think the stuff ought to be removed and it
23 ought to be not fooled with anymore. Just taken away and
24 get rid of it and put some clean soil on it and let some
25 cornfields go back in there and that will be fine.
80
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 80Official Court Reporter
1 - FRANK VAVRA: Even if we were to do that, that's
2 not how the site would work. As we stated earlier, we have
3 dense non-aqueous phase liquids down at bedrock. We're
4 going to have a pump and treat system. We're going to be
5 pumping wells located on that property. We're going to have
6 many folds to capture that water and transport it to a
7 treatment system. Probably a lot of that will be under
8 ground. It won't be that visually evident but the point is
9 that use because of ground water cleanup is going to be
10 restricted regardless until the ground water is cleaned up,
11 which is likely to be a fairly long time.
12 DON WADDELL: You're planning on putting the
13 netting over the borrow area including the stress vegetation
14 area and both cornfields?
15 FRANK VAVRA: That's correct. Before we do that
16 we'll be excavating the stress vegetation area and the
17 lagoon area and treating those soils, backfill and then the
18 soil cover will cover the whole area.
19 DON WADDELL: What about the edges of this thing?
20 How do you seal the edges that you say prevent the
21 contaminants from moving down but what about lateral. I
22 mean, water going under this net, how do you seal that?
23 FRANK VAVRA: Those metals are not traveling. If
24 they were traveling to any significant extent, you'd see
25 them in the ground water.
81
Alicia K. Wooters, RP.R ARSOOI8lj||Official Court Reporter '
1 - JEFFREY PIKE: We would also make sure the cover
2 extends far enough we have the contaminated areas covered.
3 It wouldn't be traveling laterally.
4 . MERLE HANKEY: You are going to go beyond the
5 bounds of contaminated areas and put geonet and soil?
6 FRANK VAVRA: You can see what we plan up there.
7 MERLE HANKEY: Okay. That doesn't really
8 explain—
9 FRANK VAVRA: My point is, the way their
10 contractors identified these areas with the dotted, you can
11 see we're over extending. In addition, we have added an
12 alternative that was not included in the FS the EPA
13 developed of adding this segment to cover these in addition,
14 because we believe the amount of topsoil that was indicated
15 in the FS is insufficient for a good vegetative cover so we
16 would add additional topsoil over here with the soil cover
17 that would over extend these areas after they were
18 excavated. It would table these areas which I said were
19 quite likely to be contaminated. During the RI, samples
20 were not taken from this area. They are outside the area,
21 but we think it's prudent to extend the cover out to the
22 stream.
23 . DON WADDELL: On the wet area, wetland area, how
24 does that work? You say you got the stressed area and the
25 borrow area and even some of the lagoon area is wetland, how
82AR500I82Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ~
Official Court Reporter
1 does that netting work in a wetland area? How do you cover
2 it or how do you maintain it?
3 FRANK VAVRA: It's not going to make any
4 difference. You're going -- they are going-to do the site
5 preparation. They'll place the netting, then they'll place
6 the soil cover and they'll reseed. Some areas that are low
7 enough may actually reestablish some wetlands type*
8 vegetation but then some areas will be a little higher
9 because of the soil cover and they may not be able to
10 support the wetlands vegetation as well and therefore,
11 that's, why we propose creating that wetlands area down at
12 the other end of the site, to replace areas that have been
13 damaged by remedial action.
14 MERLE HANKEY: Concerning the discharge from your
15 pump and treat system going into the stream, how often would
16 that discharge be monitored to see that they are complying
17 with the regulations for the limits or whatever? How often
18 would that be checked to make sure the pumping system is
19 working?
20 FRANK VAVRA: This is a proposed-plan at this
21 point in time. I haven't finalized that exact detail.
22 MERLE HANKEY: Is there a standard?
23 JEFFREY PIKE: Follow the standard MPD'S
24 monitoring process, once monthly.
25 MERLE HANKEY: That would be require an MPD'S
83
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AHbUUloO MlOfficial Court Reporter ™
1 permit, that would be monthly.
jfll 2 FRANK VAVRA: It doesn't require a permit.
3 Discharging on site does not require a permit. We have to
4 ' meet levels acceptable to DER, but we don't1have to go
5 through the paperwork requirements required in a MPD'S
6 permit. We just have to meet those levels. Monitoring is a
7 substantive requirement and as Jeff pointed out we have to
8 comply with whatever it was.
9 DON WADDELL: Is there going to be a public
10 meeting whenever you determine where the stripping tower
11 will be located and so on? Is a public meeting required for
12 that? In other words, you won't put it in somebody's back
13 yards without first talking to them?
14 FRANK VAVRA: I don't believe there's a public
15 meeting required under CERCLA. We would certainly intend to
16 have one and it's common to have one in the early phases of
17 design. We have already talked about what my initial
18 thoughts are about some of the places.
19 DON WADDELL: We didn't talk about if there would
20 be a public comment period or something.
21 FRANK VAVRA: There's not a true public comment
22 period included in that we would do public interaction and
23 we certainly will get the citizens opinions during that
24 design.
25 JEFFREY PIKE: We'd like to get enough through the
84
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO IOfficial Court Reporter
1 design pr-ocess so we have to show you proposed locations,
2 etc. so we would commit to have a meeting or come out and |̂|)
3 meet individually with interested groups or people at that
4 • time.
5 DON WADDELL: Do you have any time frame for that?
6 JEFFREY PIKE: Generally as far as a meeting
7 format would be appropriate around 60 to 90 percent design,
8 about that far through the process, we would have locations
9 proposed, etc. The time frame on that for design and Frank
10 can address that.
11 FRANK VAVRA: I think we'd have to have
12 interaction earlier than that in this particular instance.
13 Especially since because of the complexities of design,
14 we're leaving some of these issues open. I would tend to
15 think that during the preliminary design, like thirty "P
16 percent design, we would come out and talk to the residents.
17 MERLE HANKEY: When you have your breakdown here
18 showing all your costs and everything and your time to
19 implementation, what exactly is the time for implementation?
20 In other words, when does that start? When does that 17
21 months start?
22 FRANK VAVRA: Timed implement includes the design
23 phase.
24 MERLE HANKEY: That's what I wanted to know.
25 FRANK VAVRA: It assumes you're done all the
85
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO I 85 (IfcOfficial Court Reporter
1 negotiations phase. It's not from tonight. It's time to" '2 implement.
3 MERLE HANKEY: I just wanted to know what point in
4 time after tonight would that start. After-this would be
5 included as part of the design phase, right?
6 FRANK VAVRA: This would include both the design
7 and remedial action.
8 MERLE HANKEY: In other words, the actual design
9 and construction clean up?
10 FRANK VAVRA: Right. From the time that we had an
11 agreement with PRP's or from the time that we had a
12 contractor where we received bids and accepted them and they
13 were ready to roll and started under the fund, that time
14 frame. I have to tell you that time, frame is very loose.
15 One of the things this is a scoping, this is a scoping
16 design, Merle, and frankly, until you start getting into
17 detail design and seeing the interactions of all these
18 things that are finally selected at this point in time, this
19 is not a remedy. We haven't selected a remedy. We're
20 proposing one and until we have that and know how we're
21 going to sequence everything, those numbers are going to
22 have a lot of slack in them. There is just no way around
23 that.
24 MERLE HANKEY: I can understand how time frames
25 can be loose because whenever we had a meeting with EPA six
86
Alicia K. Wooters, RPR ARSOO 186Official Court Reporter
1 years ago. concerning the RI/FS we were told it was going to
2 take eighteen months. Now here we are six years later, so
3 we know how time frames can expand.
4 . Concerning the responsibilities of the'responsible
5 parties for these sites, do you have individual areas of
6 responsibility? Like do some of them have certain things
7 that they are responsible for like ground water? You have a»
8 multitude of responsible parties here. Are there separate
9 responsibilities for this site?
10 FRANK VAVRA: We don't have a ROD let alone an
11 agreement at this point in time. What I can tell you is in
12 our records, and it's factual, is that the responsible
13 parties came to agreement among themself in the past as to
14 how much was paid for each area. However, during remedial
15 design, remedial action that could change drastically. "P
16 MERLE HANKEY: Because I remember you said
17 something before at one of the public meetings that because
18 there were different types of wastes that were disposed in
19 different areas that maybe there would be different areas
20 that would be different responsible parties
21 responsibilities.
22 FRANK VAVRA: That's correct. Westinghouse
23 requested that we tie certain wells to certain units that we
24 were exploring so they could help apportion costs among
25 themself. EPA doesn't really care what those individual
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1 agreements are or who does what, we only care we get the
2 site cleaned up and we do whatever we can to facilitate
3 that.
4 MERLE HANKEY: I agree. Fencing for the site.
5 Once a decision is made that these things are going to be
6 done on the site and your final record of decision, are
7 these areas going to be fenced and made off limits or just
8 what is the story on the fencing? In other words, I have
9 seen some pretty shoddy fencing materials used that turn
10 into dilapidated fencing. Is there going to be any kind of
11 appropriate fencing put around these areas?
12 FRANK VAVRA: I think you have to be specific. , I
13 think for any soil cover that we have we clearly have to
14 limit access to that. It can be destroyed. I know even at
15 the site I have seen evidence of RV tracks and things like
16 that out at the site. Once we put a soil cover on, that
17 simply can't persist. We have had protracted discussions
18 with Westinghouse over site security and fencing. I agree
19 with you. I'm not all that happy with site security myself
20 right now. During the remedial action it will be written
21 into the ROD specifying what needs to be done and we will
22 have adequate security for those areas.
23 MERLE HANKEY: Site security on these sites has
24 been really sloppy. It originally started out it was
25 supposed to be monthly inspections on these sites and then
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Alicia K. Wooters, RPR AHOUOi88Official Court Reporter
1 the last .thing I heard it was quarterly inspections, and I
2 requested information through Freedom of Information Act and
3 it looked like quarterly inspections were missed on these
4 sites.
5 It doesn't look like you guys are enforcing these
6 inspections. At the very least, enforce the inspections,\-
7 make sure the security fences on these sites are still int
8 place to keep people out of those areas. I can see it from
9 Shriver's Corner, the fence lays down, the fabric filter
10 fence lays down and it will lay there for six months. I can
11 get some response if I call somebody about it, but I don't
12 feel I should have to call somebody. They should be out
13 there inspecting that site regularly like they are required
14 to under their what, Section 106 order or consent agreement
15 or whatever they had.
16 FRANK VAVRA: They do submit the information. I
17 just received recently a report from them that indicated the
18 fence had been down and it had been placed and repaired. I
19 was out there today and I looked at it and it is up. You're
20 right, it's only a snow fence and it doesn't take a whole
21 lot to knock that down and that's part of the problem.
22 MERLE HANKEY: This follows into your soil cover
23 over the geonet. Are they going to be a lot more
24 responsible in their investigations of the soil cover on the
25 geonet or can we expect there's going to be great areas that
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Alicia K. Wooters, RPROfficial Court Reporter
1 are going, to end up being exposed and what's it going to
2 take? Is it going to take citizens having to look out over
3 the field with binoculars to report this or can we expect
4 that something is going to be adequately provided here?
5 FRANK VAVRA: I think the problem is the actual
6 fence installed there is not very durable. A snow fence
7 simply is not durable. It can be knocked down by wind or
8 kids or whatever. We need something permanent and that's
9 what we would be doing to protect the remedy.
10 MERLE HANKEY: What I was discussing was the lax
11 investigation that is taking place right now. If you put
12 this geonet down and you cover it with soil and low and
13 behold the only way we can tell if everything is okay is if
14 we see this geonet. If they aren't doing the inspections
15 like they aren't doing them now, nobody will know. It's not
16 being covered properly. I'm hoping in the future these
17 inspections are looked after a little bit more closely.
18 JEFFREY PIKE: Your comment is noted and we will
19 also consider that when we get to the next phase of working
20 out agreements with people to do this work and take that
21 into consideration when we develop those agreements and the
22 requirements of that.
23 MERLE HANKEY: Hopefully this will be my last
24 question or comment.
25 JIM SPONTAK: For the state's part, I have been on
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Alicia K. Wooters, RPR • n c fl n I QflOfficial Court Reporter AnOUU I 3 U
1 those sites every month at least once a month.
2 MERLE HANKEY: Concerning the cornfields and the ^P
3 geonet and the soil cover, we have a project life of
4 approximately thirty years for the ground water, the soil
5 net or the net, the geonet, the soil cover is going to be
6 there forever? Is that what we can assume?
7 JEFFREY PIKE: Yes. It's a containment remedy.
8 MERLE HANKEY: It's going to require perpetual
9 care like a cemetery? Can we expect that's going to be done
10 perpetually? It's a good comparison, perpetual care like a
11 cemetery.
12 That's all I have. Thank you.
13 VIRGINIA MOSELEY: Any other questions or
14 comments?II15 Okay, if there are none, we will be staying, so if you ^|r
16 think of anything before you leave, please come up and ask
17 the gentlemen individually. I will be in the back. If
18 anyone wants some information sent, I will be glad to
19 accommodate you. Thank you very much for coming this
20 evening. We appreciate your attendance.
21 (Adjourned at 9:27 p.m.)
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3 I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are
4 contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me on
5 the trial of the above cause and that this copy is a correct
6 transcript of the same.
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9 DATED: May 24, 1993 C\
10 Alicia K. Wooters, RPR
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