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EPA proposes adding former Atlantic dry cleaner site to Superfund Priorities list

News

September 28th, 2015 by Ric Hanson

The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) announced Monday the government agency is proposing to add two environmentally contaminated sites in Region 7 – the PCE Former Dry Cleaner Site in Atlantic, Iowa, and the Iowa-Nebraska Light & Power Company Site in Norfolk, Neb. – to the Superfund program’s National Priorities List (NPL), potentially making both sites eligible for long-term cleanup funding. All told, the Agency today added five sites to the NPL, and proposed the addition of seven others.

The NPL, which is updated at least annually, contains the nation’s most serious uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites, and serves as the basis for prioritizing both enforcement actions and long-term EPA Superfund cleanup funding. Only sites on the NPL are eligible for such funding.

The PCE Former Dry Cleaner Site, in Atlantic, is the former location of a dry cleaner operation (at 7th and Plum Streets) that was in business in the 1960s, and beginning in 1974, the building there was leased by the Iowa Department of Transportation for use as a materials testing laboratory. It was demolished sometime after 1982 and the land is now occupied by a bank. The site has groundwater contamination from chlorinated solvents, including tetrachloroethene (PCE), trichloroethene (TCE) and degradation products.

To date, the City of Atlantic has disconnected one municipal well from the municipal system. It is currently being pumped continuously to the city wastewater treatment plant to provide hydraulic control and protect the nine other municipal wells from PCE contamination. The owners of the business on the site have installed a vapor mitigation system. The City of Atlantic, and the Atlantic Municipal Utilities, have expressed support for placing the site on the NPL.

The EPA will accept public comments regarding these and other proposed NPL site listings during a 60-day comment period following the publication date of official notice in the Federal Register. Those notices and supporting documents for final and proposed NPL sites are available online.

Established by Congress in 1980, the Superfund program investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country and converts them into productive community resources by eliminating or reducing public health risks and environmental contamination.