UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 3 4 5 • Public Meeting on the Proposed Remedial Action Plan for the Hunterstown Road 6 Superfund Site located in Straban Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania 7 8 9 Transcript of the public meeting held on 10 Wednesday, May 5, 1993 at the Cumberland Township Municipal Building, Gettysburg, 11 Pennsylvania. 12 13 14 Virginia Moseley, Community Relations Coordinator 15 Frank Vavra, Remedial Project Manager Bruce Rundell, Geologist 16 Jeffrey Pike, Chief, Western PA Remedial Section Jim Spontak, Department of Environmental Resources 17 18 19 20 Alicia K. Wooters, RPR 21 5620 Carlisle Pike New Oxford, PA 17350 22 Official Court Reporter 23 24 AB500IOI
Transcript
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
3
4
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
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18
19
20Alicia K. Wooters, RPR
21 5620 Carlisle PikeNew Oxford, PA 17350
22 Official Court Reporter
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24
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
