The ESI site was a commercial used oil processing facility that included a tank farm and several ancillary buildings such as a wastewater treatment plant, a sludge treatment building, a sludge treatment process area, an oil dehydration process area, laboratory/office building, and a truck off-loading building. In addition, the ESI facility has a parking lot in front of the tank farm, a maintenance building immediately adjacent to the tank farm, and a rail unloading area less than one mile west of the tank farm. The parking lot, maintenance building, and rail unloading area were leased from Marathon Petroleum.
The tank farm and ancillary buildings cover approximately 8.2 acres and have multiple process and storage tanks, ranging in size from 1,200 to 1,000,000 gallons in volume. The tank farm is designed so that all stormwater is captured in its internal sewer system and ultimately run through the wastewater processing equipment prior to being discharged into the City of Indianapolis Sanitary Sewer System.
There are a number of chemicals stored at the facility, for example, recycled oils, caustic soda, hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid in tanks and totes. In addition, there are 1.5 million gallons of sludge stored on-site in two separate one million gallon bunker tanks. Furthermore, all the storm water drains into the bunker tanks with the 1.5 million gallons of sludge, therefore, there is a strong potential for an overflow during high intensity rainfall events.
From 2007 to the present, there have been City of Indianapolis sanitary sewer overflows that were traced to this facility. Contaminants were found as far as 6 miles from this facility at 27 residences and three golf courses: Riverside Golf Academy, Riverside Golf Course, and Coffin Golf course. The Indianapolis Department of Public Works has spent about $100,000 dealing with the sewer overflows. In one home, it was necessary to replace the hot water tank and the sump pump because of the overflow backing up into their basement.
A limited site assessment was conducted on September 1,2010. Also, on September 1, there was a joint IDEM and USEPA Land and Chemicals PCB inspection.
Prior to USEPA mobilizing to the site, the City of Indianapolis Department of Public Works and United Water checked on ESI and provided a chemical inventory. On October 7, IDEM responded to the security guard's observation of a ESI tanker leaking and placed boom until USEPA arrived on October 8.
On April 7, 2011, the Administrative Settlement Agreement on Consent (ASAOC) was fully executed. The PRP Group lead by Safety Kleen and their contractor TriHydro began cleanup operations shortly thereafter. US EPA has maintained a presence at the Site in an oversight capacity.
Before the PRP Group took the lead role at ESI, US EPA performed an emergency removal action. Click Here for more information regarding US EPA Lead removal activities
