Edalin Michael

November 20, 2009

On November 16, 2009, the EPA announced that a settlement agreement had been reached allowing cleanup at the Hows Corner Superfund Site in Plymouth, Maine to continue. The agreement, which includes $11.2 million in cleanup work, is the result of negotiations between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MEDEP), the Maine Attorney General, and potentially responsible parties (PRPs).

Hows Corner Superfund Site, also known as West Site, was originally owned and operated by George West, Jr., in association with Portland/Bangor Waste Oil Company (PBWO). The Superfund site covers seventeen acres, including the 2-acre source area and the surrounding contaminated lands. PBWO used the 2-acre source area as a waste oil storage and transfer facility from 1965 to 1980.

PBWO received waste oil from military bases, auto dealerships, municipalities, local garages, bulk transportation companies, industries, and utility companies throughout Maine and New England, which it stored in eight 1,000 to 20,000-gallon storage tanks. According to the EPA, company records show that used motor and industrial lubricating oil made up the majority of the waste handled by the facility. The exact composition of the oils is unknown, largely because they came from such a wide variety of sources. After the oil was placed in storage tanks, it would stratify. The company then separated the waste oils by density and sold lighter oils to greenhouses, paper companies, and other facilities as fuel, while towns and racetracks used the heavier oils to coat roads for dust control. According to the EPA, over the course of its operation the facility received roughly 235,000 gallons of waste oil and other liquids for storage and transfer.

The facility closed down in 1980, shortly before the passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which would have prevented releases at Hazardous Waste Facilities such as this. After the facility closed, PBWO dismantled the storage tanks and sold them as scrap. No known activities involving waste oil occurred at the site after the facility closed.

In the late 1980's, groundwater contamination was discovered in a nearby residential well. The MEDEP began an investigation to identify the source of the contamination and distributed carbon filters to any affected residents. During a 1988 site inspection, MEDEP found contaminated soil and determined that it was the source of the groundwater contamination. The MEDEP concluded that some of the stored waste spilled and/or leaked into the ground. The pollutants then travelled through fractures in the bedrock down into the groundwater, contaminating, in total, forty-one home wells and roughly 200 acres.

Cleanup activities conducted at the site have occurred in two stages: initial actions and non-source area groundwater cleanup (Operable Unit 1).

As part of the initial response, in 1988, the MEDEP began installing a chain link fence around the site which EPA finished in 1990. EPA removed 850 tons of soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 1990–91. Further investigation by the EPA revealed that groundwater in both private wells near the site used to supply drinking water and in site monitoring wells was contaminated with volatile organic compounds, including tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, and dichloroethylene. EPA installed an alternate water line in 1993 to provide a permanent supply of safe drinking water to thirty-six affected residents. In 1995, the EPA placed the 17-acre site on the National Priorities List.

In order to determine PRPs for the Hows Corner site, MEDEP combed through PBWO records and found any individuals or companies that owned and/or operated the site at any time after the hazardous substance arrived, arranged for transport or handling of hazardous substances which arrived at such a site, or accepted hazardous substances for transport if the substances arrived at the site. "This is an unusual site," Mark Hyland, Director of the MEDEP's Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management, says. "Usually there are one or two parties who are responsible for cleaning up the site. In this case, there were hundreds of responsible parties." It is estimated that over 250 entities disposed of their waste oil at the Hows Corner site, most of which are no longer in operation.

The eighty-one still-existing PRPs are businesses, municipalities, school districts, universities and colleges, that disposed of waste oil at the Portland-Bangor Waste Oil Co., and include Bangor, Brewer, Caribou, Lincoln, Houlton, the Maine Department of Transportation, the University of Maine System, the Maine State Police, Baxter State Park, Husson College, Eastern Maine Community College, International Paper Co., and a number of car dealerships, tire companies, and garages, among other small and medium–sized businesses.

Since 1995, the EPA and MEDEP have conducted response and remediation activities at the site as part of the second phase of cleanup. This has included site and residential monitoring as well as remedial investigations and feasibility studies conducted in part by PRPs. The public water system was expanded in 2003 — federal Superfund money funded the construction of a water tower, the extension of water mains, and the addition of further residences to the system.

A third stage (Operable Unit 2) was also planned, during which the source area groundwater would be cleaned up. However, by 2006 it became evident that restoration of the groundwater would not be "technically possible" due to the groundwater's low flushing capability. According to Terry Connelly, EPA's project manager, "[The contamination] sticks to the rock and will be there a long, long time." Connelly estimated during a public meeting that, without some kind of treatment, it would take 400 years for the groundwater to decontaminate naturally. Only the topmost 100 feet of the bedrock, however, are contaminated, and the level of contamination has remained stable over the past decade. Samples are taken four times a year from homes around the Hows Corner site, but according to Connelly, "[T]ypically, no site-related contamination is found." EPA stated that, "While no one is currently being exposed to contaminated groundwater, continued use of existing private wells or the installation of new private wells could result in people being exposed to unsafe levels of contamination at some time in the future." Therefore, the final cleanup stage was reengineered to include the construction of a hydraulic containment system on the site itself to pump, capture, and filter the contaminated groundwater, then pump it back into the ground. In addition to cleaning the groundwater, the system would keep the contamination from spreading.

As part of the settlement, the PRPs will pay for federal response costs and reimburse the Federal Natural Resources Trustees both for remediation and natural resource damage assessments conducted at the site. The PRPs must also reimburse the State of Maine for its past costs in addition to a pre-determined portion of future oversight costs, all future response costs, and any costs of natural resource damage assessment.

The State of Maine also accepted an offer to settle damages to groundwater at the site until it once again meets drinking water standards. Under this separate settlement, PRPs agreed to purchase and donate a 700-acre parcel to the State to be permanently protected and used as a wildlife and recreational area in compensation for natural resource damages at the site. An additional 50 acre tract will act as a well-head protection area and will be located near the area's replacement water supply.

The eighty-one PRPs have not been able to finance the cleanup on their own. In 2007, the Maine legislature passed a bill assessing fees on oil, lubricants, and oil changes that goes to the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME). The fees will be used to fund environmental cleanups around Maine, including the Hows Superfund project. The PRPs will, however, be responsible for the legal fees incurred as part of the process. Three settling parties — Bangor Hydro-Electric Co., Highliner Foods, and the Maine National Guard — do not qualify for FAME money, and must therefore pay $644,838 out of pocket toward the cleanup. Hyland said that much of the new $11.2 million settlement would be funded through bonds issued by FAME.

The consent agreement between the parties has been filed in the U.S. District Court in Bangor, ME. After a 30-day public comment period, a federal judge must sign off on the agreement before the next phase of the cleanup process can begin. Construction on the containment pumping station is now scheduled to be complete by the fall of 2010. However, the MEDEP and the EPA have estimated that it will still take more than a century before the groundwater is free from contaminants.

Sources:

Bureau of Remediation & Waste Management, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Uncontrolled Hazardous Substance Sites in Maine Stemming from Portland-Bangor Waste Oil Company, http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/pbwo/(last visited Nov. 18, 2009).

Press Release, Environmental Protection Agency Region 1, EPA to Pay Most of Hazardous Waste Cleanup Costs at West Site/Hows Corner Superfund Site (Mar. 8, 2001), available at http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6d651d23f5a91b768525735900400c28/059e11287cfc074f8525740e007e9245!OpenDocument.

Press Release, Environmental Protection Agency Region 1, Settlement Clears Way for Cleanup Work at Hows Corner Superfund Site in Plymouth, Me. (Nov. 16, 2009), available at http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6d651d23f5a91b768525735900400c28/ac8d684445910c63852576700065b44e!OpenDocument.

Environmental Protection Agency Region 1, Waste Site Cleanup & Reuse in New England: West Site/Hows Corners, http://yosemite.epa.gov/r1/npl_pad.nsf/f52fa5c31fa8f5c885256adc0050b631/E159585A90BB33538525691F0063F704?OpenDocument(last visited Nov. 18, 2009).

Judy Harrison, Superfund Lawsuit Near Settlement: Public, Judge Must OK Agreement, Bangor Daily News, Nov. 14, 2009, available at http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/129502.html.

Sharon Kiley Mack, Superfund Settlement Includes Gift of Protected Recreation Land, The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Apr. 2, 2009, available at http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=248425&ac=PHnws.

Sharon Kiley Mack, Superfund Site in Plymouth Can't Be Cleaned Up, EPA Says, Bangor Daily News, June 1, 2006.

Jen Lynds, Houlton Panel Votes to Sign Superfund Agreement, Bangor Daily News, July 13, 2005, at B3.

Memorandum from PRP Group Executive Committee to PRPs at the Hows Corner Superfund Site Plymouth, Me., Sept. 18, 2007, available at http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/pbwo/Plymouth/Plymouth 9-18-07 FAME Funding Questionnaire.pdf.