Water wells outside of Springfield at the Tremont City Barrel Fill will be tested this month for possible water contamination. These are the first tests in a decade and are part of the years-long cleanup of the contaminated site.
Key stakeholders joined the Springfield City Commission in August for an update from the U.S. EPA on the Tremont City Barrel Fill. This included officials from Clark County Combined Health District, People for Safe Water, German Township trustees and more.
The Barrel Fill in German Township contains over 51,000 barrels and 300,000 gallons of industrial waste. That’s because the eight and half acre site was used as a landfill from 1976 to 1979. The monitoring wells on the site haven’t been tested since 2014.
The concern is that it’s only three miles from Springfield’s drinking water wellfields and a few miles from two waterways. The testing will give insight into whether contamination is spreading off-site.
Currently there’s no evidence there has been any contamination of the aquifer, according to Clark County Health Commissioner Chris Cook so these tests are a preventative measure. Cook said they are lucky that the EPA has an inventory of the chemicals present on the site.
“The thing that we don't know (nor) have a very good idea of is the state of the chemicals that are buried there and the condition of the barrels,” he said.
Cook said the EPA will produce first draft design plans for the clean up by the end of October.
Seven companies — Chemical Waste Management Inc., Franklin International Inc., International Paper Co., The Procter & Gamble Co., PPG Industries Inc., Strebor Inc. and Worthington Cylinder Corporation — are responsible for the clean-up. Roughly 100,000 residents could be affected if the contamination spread to the aquifer.
The EPA estimates over 100 different types of waste are buried at the site.
“Once we get further along in a remedial design, we'll have subsequent meetings so that they can adapt whatever type of response resources that they need to be able to respond in event of an emergency,” said EPA remedial project manager Jenny Polster at the August meeting.
Larry Ricketts is a retired environmental consultant and member of the community group People for Safe Water. He’s anxious to see the cleanup design plans once they’re available this fall.
“Those drums are probably rotting. It's going to be very difficult to remove them from the ground and implement the plan that they're doing, without a lot of the contaminants being spread about,” Ricketts said.
While Springfield tests its public water on a regular basis, Rickett said nearby neighbors connected to private wells could be more vulnerable to pollution.
“So if there is any type of spill or anything of that nature, their wells would be affected immediately by it,” he said.
The target is to remove anywhere from 100 to 125 barrels a day and drain the liquids inside the barrels to dispose of off-site.
They will re-bury the barrels, along with any solid waste, in a specially designed storage cell and place a cap over the materials.
Site decision documents estimate the clean-up will cost $27.7 million, according to the EPA.
