PROCEEDINGS OF THE EPA PROPOSED PLAN · Commodities site has largely been funded through the...

0743Site-ID ^-Break.•

P R O C E E D I N G S

of the

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

PROPOSED PLAN FOR CHEMICAL COMMODITIES SITE

JULY 2 6 , 2 0 0 5

7 : 0 0 P . M .

40215882

SUPERFUND RECORDS

FIRE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

1225 SOUTH HAMILTON CIRCLE

OLATHE, KANSAS

- JOHN M. BOWEN 8c ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS -1 9 3 0 C o m m e r c e T o w e r , 9 1 1 M a i n S t r e e t , K a n s a s C i t y , M i s s o u r i 6 4 1 0 5Missouri Kansas Toll Free Fax Email

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MS. MARY CARTER: Good evening and

welcome. I think we'll get started. I appreciate

you-all attending tonight this meeting. My name is

Mary Carter. I'm from the Region 7 Environmental

Protection Agency office in Kansas City, Kansas.

I'm a branch chief in the Superfund division, and I

have been designated as the hearing officer for this

meeting tonight.

I know that most of you signed in. If you

didn't sign in, please make sure you do that so that

we can have your name in the record. The purpose of;

this public hearing is to present the EPA's proposed

plan on the Chemical Commodities Superfund site in

Olathe and to take your comments and questions.

This meeting should allow you to

understand what we propose to do at this site and

what the conditions are at the site. Many of you

received a copy of the fact sheet and the proposed

plan. And if you haven't, we have additional copies

out on the table in the lobby. These and other

documents relevant to our decision making process

will be available in what is called the

administrative record, which is -- which will be at

- JOHN M. BOWEN & ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS -1 9 3 0 C o m m e r c e T o w e r , 9 1 1 M a i n S t r e e t , K a n s a s C i t y , M i s s o u r i 6 4 1 0 5Missouri Kansas Toll Free Fax Email

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the Olathe Public Library at 201 East Park and at

the EPA office in Kansas City, Kansas.

There will be other documents in that

administrative record as well, and those are the

remedial investigation report and the feasibility

study. Those were placed there on July 19th, which

was the beginning of the comment period.

We have a court reporter here this

evening. This is Stacy Decker, and she'll be

recording the presentations and our conversations

that we have tonight. Then that transcript will be;

used to prepare a response to the comments that we

get during the public comment period, and those

responses will be in our responsiveness summary.

The transcript and the responsiveness

summary will be in the written record supporting

EPA's final decision, and that will be made

available to the public through the administrative

file, which is at the two repositories in Kansas

City, Kansas, at our office and at the Olathe Public

Library.

This evening we'll be giving a

presentation on our work at the Chemical Commodities

- JOHN M. BOWEN & ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS~1 9 3 0 C o m m e r c e T o w e r , 9 1 1 M a i n S t r e e t , K a n s a s C i t y , M i s s o u r i 6 4 1 0 5Missouri Kansas Toll Free Fax Email

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site and on EPA's proposed plan. After the

presentations, we would like to hear your comments

and we'll answer any questions that you have.

If you have a question, I would ask that

you stand and speak loudly, state your name and

spell it if it's an unusual spelling, so that the

recorder can get that entered into the transcript.

I wanted to mention that we have worked

closely with the Kansas Department of Health and

Environment at this site and in other sites in the

state of Kansas. And I would like to introduce Rob?

Weber from the KDHE, and we'll ask him to make a

statement after our presentation. And I would just

mention that the State has concurred on our proposed

plan that we'll be discussing with you this evening.

Now I would like to introduce the others

that are here this evening from EPA. This is Mary

Peterson. She is the project manager on the

Chemical Commodities site. And over here is Barbara

Peterson, and she is our legal representative from

the office of regional counsel. And Fritz Hirter

who is with our office of external programs.

Our purpose here tonight is to provide a


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presentation on the Chemical Commodities site and to

hear your comments and get your input. This meeting

and the other meetings that we have held in the

community are part of our commitment to involve the

community in the Superfund process. Community

involvement and community input is a very important

part of the Superfund process.

The work that's been done at the Chemical

Commodities site has largely been funded through the

Superfund program. The Superfund law has provided

EPA with the authority to investigate this site andi

to respond to the various issues that affect human

health and the environment.

Now I would like to introduce -- or turn

it over to Mary Peterson to discuss the specifics.

MS. MARY PETERSON: Thank you. I would

like to say thank you all for being here tonight.

Thank you for coming out in the rain. I know it's a

welcome event given the recent heat wave.

Tonight I'm going to be talking with you,

as Mary mentioned, about the recently released

proposed plan for the CCI site or Chemical

Commodities, Inc.


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We're really pleased to be here tonight.

As you may recall, about a year or so -- actually

exactly a year ago, we were here presenting to you

our proposed plan. Last year we announced our

preferred alternatives for addressing soil and

groundwater at the site. And based on some feedback

we had received from the community and from the

state, we had determined that there was some

additional work necessary. And so after having done

that work, we are now back to you again with a

revised proposed plan.

Many of you in the room, or a few of you

anyway, may recall when the CCI site looked like

this, and this photo dates back to about 1970s. And

the CCI site operated at this location, which is at

320 South Blake Street in Olathe from 1951 to 1989,

so nearly 40 years of operation.

And what the business did, it was engaged

in the purchase and resale of used or

off-specification chemical products. And so for

those chemical products that it could not find a

purchaser for, it basically stored on the site and

it resulted in the mess you see in front of you, all


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kinds of chemicals stored in all different types of

containers in a very haphazard manner.

All the sheds and the outbuildings and the

main warehouse building were also jam-packed full of

containerized chemical wastes. And as you can

imagine, over time these containers were exposed to

the elements and they leaked, and their contents

then were absorbed into the soils, which then

penetrated down, ultimately impacting the

groundwater, so a very bad problem.

I also want to give you a little bit ofi

background while we're on this slide about the

Superfund law. Many people are familiar with the

term Superfund. They have heard of it, but they

don't really know the background or where it came

from.

Well, in 1980, the United States Congress

passed a law, and that law is titled the

Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation

and Liability Act. And that's kind of difficult to

say, it's a lot of words, but essentially what that

law did was it established a fund of money using

taxes from certain petroleum and chemical


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industries, and that pot of tax money was used -- or

designated to be used for the cleanup of abandoned

hazardous waste sites such as this one. And so

because that fund became quite large, it sort of

became nicknamed the Superfund. So that's where the

Superfund comes from.

And after that law was passed, EPA then

had to come up with a set of regulations which are

basically procedures for implementing the Superfund

law, and that set of regulations is called the

National Contingency Plan, or the NCP. And you mayi

hear me use that term, you may have heard it before,

you may hear me use it in tonight's presentation.

The intent of this slide is just to orient

you a bit to the location of the site. I'll use my

pointer here. Basically we have the Burlington

Northern Santa Fe rail lines that run just east of

the site. We have the CCI site proper. Everything

you see in red is actually owned by the CCI

corporation. But kind of a subset of this,

basically where I'm outlining here is the fenced

area, and that's the area you saw in the photograph.

That's where most of the CCI activities actually


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occurred. And then we have Blake Street, which kind

of dead-ends here into a cul-de-sac. And there is

the gate. The main entrance to CCI is right about

here. We have Cedar Street up on the north, and

then Keeler Street runs just to the west of the

site .

Basically the remaining problems at the

site include site soils that contain volatile

organic compounds, or VOCs, pesticides and metals in

the surface soils, and then we have volatile organic

compounds in the groundwater as well. And the;

groundwater has kind of migrated along the natural

groundwater pathway out westward into the

neighborhood or underneath the neighborhood. And

the primary contaminant that we see at the site is

trichlorethylene, otherwise known as TCE.

EPA has completed, along with other

parties, a number of response actions at the site to

deal with the immediate threats, basically all the

containerized chemicals that you saw in the previous

photograph.

Between 1989 and 1991, EPA did a pretty

massive response action. This picture shows where


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some of the sampling of the containerized material

was taking place, and then here we see some

overpacking operations. Overpacking is essentially

where we take a drum that's leaking and corroded and

in bad shape and we put it inside a container that's

not leaking and one that we can transport off site

for disposal.

And then to continue, these containers

here are being staged. They are going to be loaded

on a truck and transported off site.

We also did soil and groundwater sampling

to determine what additional threats were made at

the site. We excavated soil and either disposed of

it off site or we also capped some of the soil on

site if it was not contaminated to a high degree.

The main warehouse building you saw in

that first paragraph was actually sandblasted so

that the interior surfaces, the chemical residues,

were removed from the interior surfaces so that we

could continue to use that building, which we did

for some time.

And then a groundwater collection trench

was installed, and that's the picture of what you


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see here. This is part of the trench being

installed. You can see the railroad tracks running.

So this is basically between the CCI fence

line on the east side of the property and the

railroad tracks. And if any of you have been over

there, there is not a whole lot of room in between

there, so it was kind of a tight squeeze. But that

groundwater collection trench was installed for the

purpose of collecting the most highly contaminated

portions of the groundwater, and a treatment system

was actually installed and set up inside the

warehouse building.

Some other response actions that have

occurred over the years, in 1998, a group of

potentially responsible parties took over the

operation at the groundwater collection trench, the

treatment system was dismantled, because at that

time the groundwater collection trench was not

collecting enough volume of water to justify having

a 24-hour treatment system. So we went to a type of

drainage operation where currently the trench is

drained every six months.

And between 2003 and 2005, the potential


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responsible parties agreed to install ventilation

systems in 34 homes. Here is the CCI site to orient

you a little bit. And the shaded area is the area

where ventilation systems have been installed, and a

few more of them installed up here along Cedar

Street and here as well along Glendale. And those

ventilation systems were installed in response to

EPA's concern about vapor intrusion.

And what vapor intrusion means is that the

volatile organic compounds in the groundwater can

actually evaporate from the groundwater and travel;

up through the soil column and have an adverse

impact on the air quality in the homes that are

above the area of groundwater contamination. So EPA

had some concerns about that, and the PRPs responded

by installing these ventilation systems.

And then in 2003, EPA removed a stockpiled

soil pile, some of that soil that had been excavated

and capped on site in the earlier response action,

EPA removed that, and at the same time demolished

the old warehouse building which had become quite

dilapidated over time and was really presenting a

threat to on-site workers and any visitors that


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might get on the property.

So here we have where we are today, and

this is basically what CCI looks like today. We

have a grassy field with a fence around it. And we

have come a long way from the photograph you saw

earlier, but we still have work to do here.

And, honestly, if you were to walk past

the CCI site and you saw this grassy field with the

fence around it, you really would not be aware that

there are some environmental problems associated

with it, but there are, and those problems consist;

of soil contamination within the fence line and

groundwater contamination that has now traveled

westward underneath the neighborhood.

And while I'm on this slide, I also want

to mention the fence. While there yet remains a

fence around the property, it's EPA's goal to some

day have that fence be gone. Our hope is that,

following the final cleanup actions, that this site

can be restored to some beneficial use for the

community.

A remedial investigation was completed

starting in about the year 2000. And a remedial


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investigation is basically a comprehensive look at

the nature and extent of contamination at a site,

and there were a lot of waste characterization

activities that took place. Hundreds of soil and

groundwater samples were collected from both on-site

and off-site areas. I think more than 50

groundwater monitoring wells were installed, and

several bedrock groundwater studies were performed.

And the purpose of the bedrock groundwater

studies was to evaluate how does groundwater move

through the subsurface. Is it moving through the;

soil column or is it moving through the bedrock and

how is it moving, where is it moving, where is it

likely to be taking this contamination to.

And then the pilot studies were performed

to evaluate the effectiveness of various cleanup

technologies. A risk assessment was also performed

in order to evaluate the potential human health and

ecological risks that might be posed by the site.

This is called a conceptual site model,

and basically what it shows you is a cross-section

of what's going on underneath the ground. It's, I

think, a very handy tool. What we have over here on

JOHN M. BOWEN & ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS1 9 3 0 C o m m e r c e T o w e r , 9 1 1 M a i n S t r e e t , K a n s a s C i t y , M i s s o u r i 6 4 1 0 5Missouri Kansas Toll Free Fax Email

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the right side of your screen is east and then going

over to the west on the left.

But here on the east we have the

Burlington Northern railroad tracks are here, the

interceptor trench or the collection trench is here,

and then the CCI site is basically right in this

area. And what you see happening here with the

reddish-orangeish discoloration through the soils is

the contents from the drums, from the soil pile,

from tanks, from all those containers you saw in the

earlier photograph. As they leaked, they leaked;

down all the way through the soil column. Then as

groundwater flows through, some of those

contaminants get dissolved in the groundwater and

they are just sort of carried off site. Wherever

the groundwater goes, it carries those dissolved

contaminants with it.

At a certain point, these contaminants, as

they migrated down, they hit the surface of bedrock,

which is this blue layer you see here, the

southbound limestone. And what we have discovered

through our groundwater bedrock investigations is

that the majority of groundwater flow actually

JOHN M. BOWEN & ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS -1 9 3 0 C o m m e r c e T o w e r , 9 1 1 M a i n S t r e e t , K a n s a s C i t y , M i s s o u r i 6 4 1 0 5Missouri Kansas Toll Free Fax Email

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occurs in the top 10 feet of bedrock.

In some sites that we deal with, we have

more of a sandy soil strata, and we actually have a

lot of groundwater flow occur there, because

groundwater will essentially go -- it will take the

path of least resistance. And at this site -- if

any of you have ever dug out in your yards, I'm sure

you're aware that you have very tightly compacted

clays, and the water can't flow very well through

those. So it actually preferentially will flow

through the bedrock instead of the soil.)

Here we have more of a top view of what's

going on at the site of the groundwater

concentrations. Here is the CCI site here to orient

you, the railroad tracks running east. The blue

lines represent the concentration of TCE in the

groundwater, and the inner lines being the more

highly concentrated.

So certainly the on-site areas, we have

very high concentrations. We have a very narrow

little finger of contamination that comes out to

about Ocheltree Street. And then we have a broader

area of lesser concentrations covering out into the


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west of the neighborhood. And then really the outer

line that you see is essentially the extent of

contamination.

And so what we have is basically at the

north Cedar Street and then on the west, roughly

Lane Street, and south roughly Lane Street, too,

between Lane and Wabash. So that kind of gives you

a feel for the extent of groundwater impact.

In 2004, following the remedial

investigation, a feasibility study was completed.

And in the feasibility study, what we do is we/

evaluate potential cleanup alternatives. And so for

this site, we needed to look at alternatives that

would address soil and alternatives that would

address groundwater. So the ones we had looked at

that addressed soil -- and this is a repeat from

last year. These haven't changed at all. I'll

bring you up to date here in a minute, but I wanted

to review for you.

We evaluated four main alternatives for

soil. First is a no action alternative, which is

required by the NCP, the National Contingency Plan.

We also evaluated an option for off-site disposal

JOHN M. BOWEN & ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS~1 9 3 0 C o m m e r c e T o w e r , 9 1 1 M a i n S t r e e t , K a n s a s C i t y , M i s s o u r i 6 4 1 0 5Missouri Kansas Toll Free Fax Email

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and low temperature thermal desorption. And

essentially what that means is we would be

excavating certain areas of the site and bringing a

mobile treatment center on site. So we would be

treating the soils on site, and we would be putting

them back in the ground where they had come out of.

Three different excavation options had

been evaluated there. And basically Option A was a

smaller volume of soil, Option B was a more mediocre

size volume, and Option C was essentially excavating

the entire site to bedrock. So a very large volume;

of soil; consequently, the very large costs you see

here .

The third alternative was off-site

disposal, which is another excavation alternative

where we would be excavating soils and transporting

them off site for disposal.

And Option A, B, and C were exactly the

same as evaluated here, so just different excavation

scenarios. And if you compare the costs, you can

see they are roughly in the same range with Option

C, the big large volume excavation, being

substantially less costly.


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But for this alternative, EPA actually

requested that an Option D be evaluated. And what

Option D involved was excavation of hot spot areas,

and those hot spot areas have been defined as

shallow soils in the zero to six foot range having a

concentration of 1,000 parts per million TCE.

And then the fourth alternative was

capping, which is essentially putting a protective

barrier cover on top, not removing anything, but

just covering what's there to prevent exposures.

And the cost associated with that you can see.

The 2004 feasibility study alternatives

for groundwater included, of course, the no action

as required. Also, in situ chemical oxidation. In

situ basically means in place. So instead of

removing the groundwater, we're going to try to

treat it in place using a technology called chemical

oxidation where essentially we inject an oxidizing

chemical into the groundwater, it reacts with the

contaminants in the ground and destroys them. And

the cost associated with that was 4.6 million.

We evaluated a pump and treat option,

which is basically removing the groundwater from the


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ground, you put in wells and pumps, and you extract

the groundwater and you run it through a treatment

system, and then you can either reinject the

groundwater or you can discharge it to a sewer or to

a body of water or something like that.

And then the fourth one we evaluated was

called monitored natural attenuation which is

essentially allowing the natural degradation

processes that mother nature provides us to break

down the chemicals over time, and we would monitor

that over time. And some people, when you sayI

monitored natural attenuation, think that that means

you are not doing anything, and that's really not

true, as you can see, because even that would cost

2.8 million dollars. So still a quite costly thing

to do .

The NCP, now that you all know what the

NCP is, has a set of criteria that we are required

to use in evaluating alternatives in a feasibility

study, and they kind of fall into three main

categories. The first one is the threshold

criteria, and that means that these criteria must be

met. You cannot consider an alternative that does


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not meet one of these criteria. And those criteria

include protection of human health and the

environment and that it meets regulatory

requirements. And what that essentially means is

that the alternative you choose needs to meet other

environmental laws. For example, if there is an air

permit -- not necessarily a permit, but if there is

discharge or emission levels that need to be met,

that you must meet those levels.

And then we have a set of balancing

criteria, and those are really helpful -- for all}

the alternatives that meet the threshold criteria,

it's really helpful to use these balancing criteria

to really take a hard look at, okay, which one

really performs the best. And those criteria

include long-term effectiveness and permanence, you

know, how effective is that alternative going to be

in meeting the cleanup goals in the long term and

does it provide a permanent solution, how effective

is that alternative in reducing the toxicity,

mobility, and volume of the compounds that are

present, does it chemically alter them and reduce

their toxicity, does it hinder their ability to move


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around in the environment, or does it just basically

remove their volume or their mass that's present.

Short-term effectiveness refers to things

like site workers' safety, the safety of residents

during implementation of a remedy, noise, traffic,

those kinds of things. Also, implementability is

essentially how easy is it to physically implement

this remedy, that is, are the services and materials

readily available to do this kind of work, are there

power lines that are in the way that we need to move

or are there roads that we need to close. Those are;

implementability issues that we need to look at.

And then the last one there is cost.

We also have two modifying criteria, and

those include state acceptance and community

acceptance. It is very important to EPA that we

have both the state and the community in favor of

what EPA is proposing to do, because, after all,

this is being done in your community. And the way

we really evaluate the modifying criteria is through

the public comment process, so that's what the

public comment period is for.

A year ago we presented to you a proposed


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plan that included these alternatives. The soil

alternative was alternative S3D. It was the

off-site disposal. It included excavation and

disposal of hot spot areas to a cleanup level of

1,000 parts per million TCE, construction of a soil

cap, and land use controls to prevent residential or

industrial development of the property.

And then the groundwater alternative was

G2 in situ chemical oxidation, including on-site and

off-site treatment. It also included a monitored

natural attenuation component. So it was really

kind of a combination of two alternatives. It

included groundwater use controls to prevent people

from installing drinking water wells or things like

that.

It's also important for you all to know

that you are not drinking this water. I should have

probably stated that up front. I think most of you

are aware that you are connected to a city water

supply, and Olathe gets its water from Lake Olathe,

which is about 12 miles west of the site. So your

water supply is safe. You are not drinking this

contaminated water.


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This alternative would also include

maintenance of the ventilation systems that we

previously installed.

So that's what we brought to you last

year. And the feedback we received from the state

and the community is that essentially we need more

on-site soil removal or treatment, we needed to do a

more aggressive cleanup action for the on-site area,

and we needed to better define DNAPL source zones.

And you-all are thinking what in the world

is a DNAPL. It's one of those acronyms that we use,

and it stands for dense nonaqueous phase liquid.

And what that essentially means is that some

contaminants will separate out when combined with

water, much like oil and water do. But in this

case, the dense means that this liquid will actually

separate out and go to the bottom. So instead of

floating on the water table, it will actually sink

down to the bottom. And in high enough

concentrations, TCE will actually separate out as a

separate phase and it will be found at the bottom of

the groundwater layer.

And this was the concern, was that if TCE


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has a tendency to do this, to become a DNAPL, and

there were very high concentrations on site, there

was some concern that there were actually pools of

DNAPL that might be found lying on top of the

bedrock on site. And perhaps if they were there, it

would be good that we if we could remove that and

that should be part of our remedy. So what we

needed to do was find out whether or not they were

there .

And in 2005, then, EPA requested the

potentially responsible parties to perform a

supplemental investigation, and that was done, and

we were able to better define the on-site soil

contamination by putting in 41 soil borings and

collecting 142 soil samples. And considering that

this property is only about an acre and a half

within the fence line, 41 soil borings is actually

quite a lot. The area was basically polka-dotted

with soil borings. So we were able to collect a lot

of really good information. And the good news that

we found was that we could not detect any sort of

recoverable DNAPL. So these pools of DNAPL that

people had envisioned might exist on the site were


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proven not to exist, so that was good to know.

Following the completion of the

supplemental investigation, a second feasibility

study addendum was prepared based on that new

information, and so we came up with a new

alternative, and we called it S3D-Plus, because it

essentially has some components that are similar to

S3D, which is what we proposed last year, but it

adds a few new things. And those things that have

been added are highlighted in orange here on your

screen, but we'll run through all of it.;

It includes the excavation of metals and

high volatile organic compounds in the shallow soil

zone. There were two options that were evaluated in

this new feasibility study addendum. Option A

evaluated an excavation scenario to 1,000 parts per

million, which is the same as what we previously

evaluated. And then Option B evaluated a cleanup

level of 110 parts per million TCE.

We also included excavation to bedrock, so

deeper excavations of highly contaminated areas.

And in those areas we would be adding chemical

oxidation treatment to deal with the entire soil


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column as well as some groundwater, too, at the

bedrock surface. And then it would include the soil

cover and the land use controls as were previously

included in the original S3D option.

As a result of the supplemental

investigation, what we basically have in the shallow

soil, zero to five foot depth, we basically have two

areas that contain high levels of VOCs. This other

area here is basically the metals area, and that

really hasn't changed from last year.

More the midrange soils, five to 15 foot

depth, we basically have two zones on site that

contain high levels of VOCs. And then in the deeper

soil zones, greater than 15 feet, are essentially on

the bedrock surface or near it, we have two zones,

two areas that have high VOC concentrations. So

these are the areas that we want to focus on in our

proposed remedy.

This table shows you a comparison of the

old alternative, S3D, and the new alternative being

considered, S3D-Plus, both Option A and Option B.

As I mentioned, Option A is the 1,000 part per

million cleanup level, and Option B is 110, so quite


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a difference there.

What we see when we look at the soil

volumes is that previously under S3D we were

removing about 500 cubic yards of VOC contaminated

material. Under S3D-Plus, Option A, it actually

goes down a little bit because we are going down to

five-foot depth, where here we were going to

six-foot depth, but the cleanup level remaining the

same .

S3D-Plus, Option B, if we broaden out to

110 parts per million, then we're removing quite a

bit more soil than S3D offered. And then where you

really see the benefit is down here in the VOC mass

or pounds of VOC being removed or treated. S3D was

about 2,300 pounds of VOCs being removed. With

S3D-Plus, Option A, a little over 8,000, and about

8,300 for Option B.

What's really interesting to me is here we

are getting nearly four times the VOC mass removed

or treated, and when you look at the cost, the costs

are marginally higher, but not substantially higher.

So we're getting a lot more accomplished for a

little more money, and I think that's a good thing.


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29

So you probably know where I was heading

with all that. Our preferred alternative is

S3D-Plus, Option B, excavation and off-site

disposal, including excavation of the top five feet

of soil in these areas where we found -- in the

supplemental investigation where we found the high

VOC areas in the shallow zone, those would be

excavated to the 110 part per million level as

defined by the supplemental investigation. The

metals contaminated area would be removed as well.

These little purple circular areas you see;

are representing the areas of deeper excavation, and

those would be done using a five-foot diameter drill

rig. And the reason this is pretty exciting to us

is one of our main concerns in evaluating highly

concentrated soil is safety of the residents. There

are emissions that occur during excavations. And if

we can use this five-foot diameter drilling rig,

there is actually a shroud around the rig that will

greatly, greatly reduce the emissions that are

produced during excavation. So we thought this was

a pretty exciting alternative for us to be able to

really dig down and get some of those deeper, highly


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concentrated soils. And so that technology would be

applied in the two areas where we had high

concentrations in the midrange depths.

And then we're also going to do

permanganate injection in those holes. After the

soil is removed, a permanganate slurry will

essentially go back in the hole, and so there will

be treatment all the way along the soil column as

well as down in the bedrock surface.

And then the other component here is that,

using the existing interceptor trench or collection

trench, we can actually do some permanganate

injection to deal with -- there was one area, if

you'll recall, in a previous slide that had some

high VOCs right at the bedrock surface, and we think

that we can address that contamination using

permanganate injection through the existing trench.

This alternative also includes the soil

cover. And after all these activities, it still

includes the soil coverage to provide that

protective barrier and land use controls.

The groundwater preferred alternative has

not changed since last year. We're still


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31

recommending the chemical oxidation in situ

treatment.

The public comment period opened on July

19th and runs through August 19th. Based on the

comments received, EPA will make a final decision

and will document that decision in a record of

decision, and the record of decision will include

what we call a responsiveness summary, which is

basically a written response to all comments

received during the comment period.

And the administrative record file, like

Mary Carter told you earlier, is located at the

Olathe Public Library. It contains all the

documents that EPA used to base its preferred

alternative on. That is there for your review. We

also have a copy of that at the EPA Region 7 offices

in Kansas City, Kansas.

And if you would like to submit written

comments, you may do so to Mr. Fritz Hirter at the

address shown here. You can also submit those via

email. Fritz's email address is here. All of this

information is provided to you on the fact sheet as

well, so you don't need to necessarily write it


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32

down. Just grab a copy of the fact sheet and you'll

know where to send your comments. That concludes my

part of the presentation.

MS. MARY CARTER: Thank you, Mary. Now I

would like to ask the state, Rob Weber from the

Kansas Department of Health and Environment, to make

a statement.

MR. WEBER: Good evening. And thank you,

Mary and Mary, for inviting me to make a brief

statement. I won't take up much of your time.

My name is Rob Weber, and many of you;

recognize me from my involvement at the CCI site.

I'm the unit manager with the Superfund unit, and

I'm responsible for the review of Superfund sites

throughout the state of Kansas.

As Mary had communicated, KDHE has

concurred with the EPA proposed plan for the site.

The revised proposed remedy for the site addresses

our concerns for contaminant mass removal in both

the source area and in the off-site groundwater and

on-site groundwater through active means.

Based on our review, the revised proposed

plan has significantly improved on the initial


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33

proposed plan in its scope of activities. We look

forward to a record of decision and remedial design,

remedial action at the site, and we also look

forward to our continued work with the community,

the city, the responsible parties, and EPA to reach

an end point at the site. Thank you very much.

MS. MARY CARTER: Thank you, Rob. We

appreciate your comments, assistance, and support at

this site and other sites in the state.

At this time I would like to ask if anyone

has a comment or would like to ask a question,

please stand and speak loudly and clearly so that we

can enter it in the record.

MS. HUGHES: I'm Sherry Hughes. I'm

actually here for someone else to ask some questions

for them and some for myself.

When I look at that map, I see like

sometimes it does go across the railroad tracks and

sometimes it doesn't. I mean, how do you know --

can you be absolutely sure there is no contaminants

further outside that area? It was near the end that

I saw it, though. I mean, did you test there?

MS. MARY PETERSON: I would have to look


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34

and see if we had any wells. The question she is

referring to -- or the street she is referring to is

over to Church Street.

Do you remember, Mike or Brian, if we have

wells over that far? It's east of the railroad

tracks.

MR. PEDICINO: There is two wells over

there, Mary, two wells on that street and both down

to top of rock.

MS. MARY PETERSON: Isn't that Mahaffie

Street? I don't think we went as far over as

Church. We have two wells that are on Mahaffie, and

I don't think we have ever really found anything

there. So those -- what you are seeing on the map

is just these contour lines, and they are computer

generated, so it sort of swings it out around where

our wells are. We don't have wells on Church

Street. We have them on Mahaffie, and we have not

found contamination there.

MS. HUGHES: So then the railroad tracks,

they are wondering whether or not, if they messed

with any of that area, it doesn't affect air quality

if they come in and elevate the railroad tracks


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35

there?

MS. MARY PETERSON: That's kind of a

different issue. I mean, that really shouldn't have

anything to do with the site really. They are not

really coming onto the CCI property to do the

railroad elevation. I mean, it might generate a

whole bunch of dust, a lot of dirt in the air,

but --

MS. HUGHES: Really it's kind of hard to

navigate the site for people like us that don't

really -- I mean, I had a difficult time myself when;

they were asking me questions trying to figure out

what I was reading.

They also said that there is a one-mile

buffer zone. I mean, is that something -- they said

they read that there was -- inside some of the

documents they read, there was a one-mile buffer

zone around that area.

MS. MARY PETERSON: Is that in relation to

the railroad track project?

MS. HUGHES: No. Around the CCI site.

MS. MARY PETERSON: I have not heard of

that before, so I'm not sure where that's coming


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36

from.

MS. HUGHES: It was in something she read

at the library.

Now, my question is on those houses that

you have treated that they have some kind of

ventilation system in, is that going to be

continually monitored, those --

MS. MARY PETERSON: Yes, that will

continue to be monitored.

MS. HUGHES: Now, this is a question from

my standpoint. Is that something where that's on

record somewhere which homes are being done?

MS. MARY PETERSON: Oh, yes. We've got --

MS. HUGHES: I mean, not just with you

or --

MS. MARY PETERSON: Right. Actually one

of the potentially responsible parties has been

putting in the ventilation systems. And every time

they do it -- they kind of have been doing it in

phases. And every time there is a new phase, there

is a report that comes out that documents the houses

that have been addressed. So those reports are

readily available.


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32.

MS. HUGHES: Where do those go?

MS. MARY PETERSON: I have those, and they

will ultimately end up in the administrative record

file. I am not sure they are all in there yet.

They probably are. All the ones that exist so far

should be in the administrative record file.

MS. HUGHES: At the EPA?

• MS. MARY PETERSON: No. There is one at

the Olathe Public Library, and that's available for

your review. Or at the EPA, we've got them, too.

MS. HUGHES: When I listed this house, I

had never even heard about this Superfund. I know

that sounds stupid, but I'm not really from this

area, so it came as quite a shock. And, of course,

it -- you know, kind of at first it's like, oh, you

know, but if -- let's say you had a homeowner in one

of those spots. Disclosure is necessary. And if

you don't really have one that — my seller had no

clue that -- he hadn't heard of it, either. So how

would there be a way of notifying if, say, someone

purchased one of those homes?

MS. MARY PETERSON: Well, this has been an

issue that's been a topic of discussion since we


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.38.

started working out here, because actually some of

the homes that are impacted have been in that

situation. They have been bought and sold and new

purchasers didn't know anything about it and the

realtor didn't know anything about it.

You know, we have been in the news. There

has been lots of news articles.

MS. HUGHES: I notice they didn't have the

address in the paper of the CCI place. It just said

CCI .

MS. MARY PETERSON: Well, the address is

readily available. I mean, it's 320 South Blake

Street. That's always been the address, and it's

been published many times. But I think the problem

is there is just not a high degree of communication

between the real estate community and the EPA.

MS. HUGHES: Wouldn't there be a way of --

isn't there a way they could record it at the

courthouse in any manner?

MS. MARY PETERSON: Yes. Actually that's

one of the components that's being -- that will

probably be part of the record of decision. It's

called an institutional control.


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_39_

And, Barbara, I don't know if you want to

tell her what we're planning to do.

MS. BARBARA PETERSON: What we're planning

to propose will relate to the CCI site itself. But

as far as individual homes, we won't be recording

anything with respect to the individual homes.

I think that -- and I'm not a real estate

expert, but I think that the burden is going to be

on the seller to make that disclosure. I don't know

that -- I'm not aware of any process available to

EPA whereby we can file any kind of notices with

respect to private residences as to what's going on

in those residences. I don't know that we have the

authority to do that.

MS. HUGHES: So if it's ongoing

monitoring, is this something that they notify the

resident each time they have checked it?

MS. BARBARA PETERSON: The residents that

are there now, we have to get their permission,

number one, to install them. And we also let them

know when we put them in and we get their permission

to do the ongoing monitoring, and so the current

owners are well aware of this and have, in fact,


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given us permission to do that.

Again, like I said, it's really their

responsibility. Like I say, I don't know real

estate, but I think the property owners have a

responsibility to disclose certain defects or

whatever.

MS. HUGHES: It's sometimes like in the

event of a death, an outside family member comes in

to dispose of the property with no knowledge. I

mean, there would be no knowledge.

MR. PEDICINO: One of the things, ma'am,

most of these are visible on the outside. If it's a

crawl space, you'll be able to see a rather large

four-inch diameter white pipe that's either going

alongside the house or going up to the roof. There

is a motor attached to it. You'll hear a slight

hum.

MS. HUGHES: Kind of like radon?

MR. PEDICINO: That's exactly what it is.

So if somebody is going down to inspect the house,

you can't miss it. And the other thing, ma'am, is

this also doubles as a radon system. And a lot of

the houses around here do have radon. So, in


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effect, they are also solving the radon problem.

MS. HUGHES: Well, that pretty much

answers -- and all those things are in here?

MS. MARY PETERSON: Yes, ma'am.

MS. MARY CARTER: Are there any other

questions or anyone would like to make a comment or

statement ?

I'll just remind you again that the

comment period goes through August 19th. And you

can make your comments to Fritz Hirter, and his

address -- Fritz, is your address in the fact sheet?

MR. HIRTER: On the fact sheet.

MS. MARY CARTER: And we really appreciate

you participating in this meeting, we appreciate

your input and your comments, and thank you for

coming tonight.

(Meeting adjourned.)


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42

C E R T I F I C A T E

I, Stacy L. Decker, a Notary Public of the

State of Kansas, do hereby certify that I appeared

at the time and place first hereinbefore set forth,

that I took down in shorthand the entire proceedings

had at said time and place, and that the foregoing

constitutes a true, correct, and complete transcript

of my said shorthand notes.

Witness my hand and seal this 27th day of

July, 2005.

Stacy L. D

N o t a r y Publ ic , State of Kansas

My commiss ion expires 7 / 2 1 / 0 8

STACY L. DECKER

My Appl. Exp.


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