New wells potentially a ‘huge pivot point’ for clean up effort
Efforts to clean up the Trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination at the former Sporlan Plant on East Seventh Street in Washington are progressing, but Environmental Protection Agency officials said Tuesday that more testing is necessary at the site.
Isabel Villaneda-Van Vloten, a remedial project manager for the EPA assigned to the Sporlan site, addressed members of the Washington City Council on Tuesday. The council’s regularly scheduled meeting on Monday was delayed due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.
“The set of wells that we put in during the summer of 2021 went into the bedrock about 20 feet. What we found is that, unfortunately, there is contamination in the bedrock, so we still need to do a little bit more additional testing,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. Prior testing showed the hazardous chemical was in groundwater, soil gas and indoor air within homes surrounding the site, according to a July 2019 report from the EPA.
With 23 wells already in operation in-and-around the site, Villaneda-Van Vloten said the EPA will be drilling a number of new wells at the site in March 2023. These new wells will go deeper into the bedrock to give officials a better idea how far the contamination reached.
The EPA is also relying on data from trees in the largely residential neighborhood to provide clues about the TCE contamination, which was first discovered between 2003 and 2006.
“Basically, the roots of the trees are pulling up the groundwater and sort of giving up that water as sweat. As the trees sweat, they give off these vapors into the air. So when we will drill into the tree, we are making it an almost proxy for a deep well,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. “It is a good way for us to get a sample done very quickly.”
Recent tree testing showed there were 12 additional properties that had some level of TCE contamination. Of those 12, three residences were identified for actionable steps, Villaneda-Van Vloten said.
“All of this work going forward — whether that is poking holes in the ground or testing trees — is part of our remedial investigation,” Villaneda-Van Vloten explained. “That’s where we determine where the contamination is, where it has been and how significant the contamination is.”
TCE is an industrial-strength degreaser, which was used for years at the Sporlan plant that was in operation from 1939 to 2003. Prolonged exposure to TCE poses multiple health risks, Villaneda-Van Vloten said Tuesday, including damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, liver, the immune system, the male reproductive system and to a developing fetus. TCE is described by the EPA as a “carcinogenic in humans by all routes of exposure.”
“I know it sounds scary, but TCE is one of the most common contaminants that we have,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. “We are not seeing any immediate risk to the people in Washington in general.”
This was reiterated by Washington officials on Tuesday evening, with city leaders saying that the city’s water supply was not impacted by the contamination. The city’s water supply undergoes “continuous sampling” to ensure that it remains free of contaminates, according to Washington Emergency Management Director Mark Skornia.
Villaneda-Van Vloten said testing of Busch Creek showed that any TCE contamination in the creek was “below non-detectable levels.”
“That shows us that we don’t have to be concerned about environmental concerns involving the creek or that we do not need to be concerned about anyone being in the creek for recreation,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. “Those results showed us that we have a pretty good grasp on where the soil contamination is now.”
Skornia said while much of the testing has been done out of the public eye, he believes they have made “significant progress” on the site since it was declared a Superfund site by the EPA and added to the national priorities list in 2019.
“This is a longterm effort that really started more than 15 years ago,” Skornia said of the 4-acre site that is just blocks away from Washington High School.
“The ultimate goal is to remove the contaminates and to return the site to a usable purpose, but that is not going to be a quick thing. This is all going to take multiple years,” Skornia said. The refrigeration valve manufacturing facility was demolished in 2011 to make way for planned single-family homes. Material from the razed structure was used for fill at the Rhine River development on Front Street, the site of the old Franklin County Concrete plant.
Washington Community and Economic Development Director Sal Maniaci said future uses of the Sporlan property have yet to be identified, but it would likely still be rezoned and developed into single-family homes. The property could potentially accommodate between 25 to 30 homes, depending on lot sizes and the size of the homes.
However, Villaneda-Van Vloten said Tuesday that there is still much to be done before the site can be redeveloped.
“Once we have a full data set, we will do a full assessment of risk followed by a feasibility study,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. The feasibility study will “sort out different alternatives for cleaning up the site” and “sort of weigh the pros and cons to figure out what the best course of action is,” she said.
“Once that is done, we will be able to move on to actually talking about proposed land uses,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. Villaneda-Van Vloten’s report will be followed by the release of a “fact sheet” from the EPA. The fact sheet will be published on the city’s website, Skornia said.
Anyone eager to see the site cleaned up needs to turn their attention to the new wells drilled in March, she said.
“That’s going to be a huge pivot point for where we go next,” Villaneda-Van Vloten said. “If we find a lot of contamination at that depth, then we will need to install more wells and do more testing. If we don’t, then the process will begin to move much more quickly.”
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