NEW YORK, NY, Feb. 4, 2015 -- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it is proposing to remove a portion of the Fulton Terminals Superfund site, located in the city of Fulton, N.Y., from the federal Superfund list of the most contaminated hazardous waste sites, after cleaning up more than 10,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and approximately 9 million gallons of contaminated groundwater.
A 50-foot section of the site between the former Fulton Terminals facility and the Oswego River where groundwater is still contaminated will remain on the Superfund list. The soil and the groundwater at the site were contaminated with volatile organic compounds as a result of spills and leaks from storage tanks at the site.
The EPA and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have determined that all necessary cleanup actions have been completed on the 1.5-acre former facility and that it no longer poses a threat to people's health or the environment. The proposal to remove most of the site from the Superfund list comes after several reviews of the site and contamination in the groundwater beneath the site. The public is invited to comment on the proposed partial deletion of the site throughMarch 6, 2015.
From 1972 to 1977, the property was used by Fulton Terminals, Inc., as a staging and storage area for solvents and other materials that were scheduled for processing at Pollution Abatement Services, a chemical waste incineration facility in Oswego County, which is also a federal Superfund site. The Fulton Terminals Superfund site was listed on the Superfund list in 1983.
The cleanup at the site, completed in 1997, included: excavating and treating the soil with heat to remove the volatile organic compounds; backfilling the excavated areas with the cleaned up soil; and pumping and treating the contaminated groundwater. Currently, the city of Fulton, the current owner of the former facility property, is interested in developing the land for community use once this portion of the site it is removed from the Superfund list.
The soil at the site and groundwater located under the former facility no longer pose a threat to public health or the environment. One area of groundwater at one monitoring well between the former facility and the Oswego River has residual contamination but does not present a health risk. EPA expects the levels of contamination in this area to decrease naturally. Monitoring of the groundwater in this area will continue until an acceptable level is achieved.
See also:
"Second phase of cleanup to begin at former NY mercury refining Superfund site"
"EPA finalizes NY Superfund site's $506M cleanup plan"
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