EPA to review Burrillville Superfund site
BURRILLVILLE — The Environmental Protection Agency this year is conducting required comprehensive five-year reviews of 24 Superfund sites across New England – including Western Sand & Gravel in Burrillville – to make sure previously completed cleanups remain safe.
The Superfund program, a federal program established by Congress in 1980, investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country with a goal of returning them to productive use.
“The EPA has a renewed focus to make progress on Superfund sites across the country,” said EPA regional administrator Alexandra Dunn. “We are dedicated to addressing risk at sites, which is why it’s important for us to conduct these regular reviews of previously completed cleanups to make sure these remedies remain protective of human health and the environment.”
EPA is actively involved in Superfund studies and cleanups at 123 sites across New England. There are several phases of the Superfund cleanup process including considering future use and redevelopment at sites and conducting post cleanup monitoring of sites.
The EPA must also ensure the remedy is protective of public health and the environment and that any redevelopment will uphold the protectiveness of the remedy into the future, which why the five-year reviews are required.
The EPA will begin work on the 24 five-year reviews this spring. Once the reviews ares complete, the findings will be posted to the EPA’s website.
The Western Sand and Gravel Superfund site includes about 25 acres in a rural area on the boundary of Burrillville and North Smithfield. From 1953 until 1975, the site operated as a sand and gravel quarry. From 1975 to 1979, site operators disposed of wastes into unlined lagoons and pits. Those waste handling practices resulted in contamination of soil and groundwater.
The EPA placed the site on the Su- perfund program’s National Priorities List in 1983. Cleanup activities included waste removal, a groundwater re-circulation system and an alternate water supply. Cleanup also included capping a 2-acre area and fencing of the sixacre contaminated soil area, restricting groundwater and land use, and monitoring of natural processes to clean up groundwater.
In 2001, Supreme Mid-Atlantic, Inc. purchased the site. In 2004, the company completed construction of a 20,000 square-foot truck-body assembly building and open space for truck parking. This building and parking area occupy about 19 acres generally up-gradient from the capped area and contaminated groundwater. Supreme Mid-Atlantic, Inc. conducts assembly, sales and service activities at the site.
As of today, the site has been stabilized, and an alternative water supply has been made available while natural attenuation processes clean contaminated groundwater. Institutional controls prohibit the use of the groundwater in the meantime.