The Rehab Resource Site is located at 3029 E Washington St., Indianapolis, Marion County, IN. The main business conducted at the Site was to provide affordable building materials to low income families and operated under a not-for-profit status. One of the main products sold by the company was paint. The facility would take in off-spec paint and mix it into uniform colors for distribution. The Site shut down in November 2008. Since then, the facility has been severely vandalized.
On March 12, 2009 a fire broke out in the rear portion of the north warehouse at the Site. Indianapolis Fire Department (IFD) responded to the fire quickly and put it out. The Marion County Health Department (MCHD) and IDEM were notified the following day and conducted an assessment of the property and due to Site conditions and access issues referred the Site to EPA.
The Rehab Resource Site was referred to EPA by Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) in March 2009 after the aforementioned fire. The main concern of IDEM and MCHD was the extremely high numbers of paint and stain cans that were in the building. On March 17th, 2009, EPA OSC and MCHD conducted a walkthrough of the facility.
During the walkthrough the OSC confirmed the presence of a large number of containers containing mostly paint stored in the north building. There are several large rooms (at least 4) stacked floor to ceiling with paint, stains and spray paint in the north warehouse. In the area of the fire there are many melted paint containers and several 55 gallon drums. Also found in the north warehouse were hundreds of containers that include but are not limited to the following: pool chemicals, cleaning solvents, fertilizers, herbicides, toluene, and several unmarked 55 gallon drums. Based on the chemicals present and the potential for another fire, the OSC initiated and emergency response to remove the hazards.
The following actions have taken place at the facility during this reporting period:
ERRS, START, IDEM, and EPA OSC arrived on-site and conducted a walkthrough of the north building where the fire occurred. During this walkthrough air monitoring was conducted and the building was screened for radiation. Due to the condition of the building and the amount of waste to be disposed of, it was decided that the first thing to do was general housekeeping of the facility.
The north building was delineated into work zones to aid in the cleanup process. There are two main paint storage areas that will be called paint storage zone 1 and 2 (PSZ1 and PSZ2). These rooms were not impacted by the fire and contain various containers from floor to ceiling.
The next zone is the fire zone (FZ), which by its name is where the fire took place. In this zone there is a large pile of melted containers, burned drums, and some untouched containers. There is also a solvent storage area here and this would have been the area where the mixing process took place during operation.
The next two areas are the staging zones 1 and 2 (SZ1 and SZ). ERRS has been working in these areas pretty much all week. These areas are where the company used to store other building materials besides the paint. ERRS has been clearing these areas and organizing the other materials to acquire space to stage and package the future waste streams.
The final two areas are the decon area and the pit and tunnel area. The area near the only current access point used to be offices and was cleared by ERRS to use for the decon area. The pit and tunnel area is located near the back of SZ2. At the time of inspection it was filled with 8 inches of water but leads to underground tunnels under the buildings.
By Thursday, April 9, ERRS had cleared enough space in the building to begin cleaning up the fire zone. Paint containers will be checked for flammability and then segregated into a flammables pile or a non-flammable pile. Non-paint containers will be set aside for hazcatting to determine characteristics. Containers will be bulked into cubic-yard boxes.
Once the fire zone is completed, the same process used there will be applied to PSZ1 and PSZ2. Many of the containers in these rooms are shrink-wrapped on pallets. However, due to the nature of the business run at the facility, the PRP stated that sometimes waste generators would hide other materials inside a pallet of paint. For this reason it will be necessary to unwrap the pallets to check for other hazardous materials, slowing up the process of bulking.
Once completed with the north building, crews will move to the south warehouse and complete the same operations.
The main issue at the Site is security. The area experiences a high incident of crime, mostly at night. Thus, a Security guard has been hired to watch over the Site and equipment at night.
Another issue is coordination with the PRP. Allthough he has shut down operations, he is attempting to give away some of the materials he stored in the warehouses. Some of these materials are in the hot zone and need to be deconed prior to removal.
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