The Arlington Plating Company (APC) site (Site) is the location of a former metal plating facility. The Site is a building located at 4001-4007 Goodfellow Boulevard, St. Louis, MO. The building is located on property that is adjacent to commercial/light industrial properties on Goodfellow Boulevard and adjacent to residential properties on the west side. A portion of the structure that makes up the Site houses an auto alarm security business. Past operations at the Site by APC include metal cleaning, nickle and chrome plating, and electropolishing. During these operations hazardous wastes were generated. The Site contains a plating waste storage area that is about 900 square feet in area. Within the waste storage area there are approximately eighty 55-gallon drums and sixteen plating and rinse tanks. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) conducted inspections of the facility beginning in 1995 to determine if the facility was in compliance with the Missouri Hazardous Waste Management Law, Sections 260.350-.550 RSMo., and issued several Notices of Violation (NOV’s) to the facility. In addition the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have conducted inspections at various times. Inside the storage area are approximately 100 drums and other smaller containers along with 16 vats containing corrosive (pH <2) and toxic (>5ppm TCLP chromium, lead, cadmium, arsenic) hazardous waste. Some of the containers have deteriorated to the point that they may soon release their hazardous contents, and the containers will continue to deteriorate. The corrosive and toxic waste are characteristic hazardous wastes pursuant to Section 3001 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6921, and its supporting regulations, and as such are hazardous substances as defined in section 101(14) of CERCLA.
The EPA along with the Emergency and Rapid Response Services (ERRS) and Superfund Technical Assessment Response Team (START) contractors mobilized to the Site on Monday, January 5, 2004. Work began with the removal of debris blocking access to the waste. Field testing was performed on the drums to determine the pH and were moved to a staging area where they were sorted and staged appropriately. The pH for the vast majority of the drums was <2, with a few having a pH as high as 11. The second day crews began cutting-up the vats and completed staging of the drums. The START contractor conducted air monitoring both in the work area, and also around the perimeter of the Site. Monitoring was done for CO, SO2 ,NH3, H2S, HCn, VOC’s and LEL. All were below the detection limits of the instruments, except for CO, where there was a single reading of 2ppm(parts per million). The remainder of the week the crews spent cutting up vats. Preparations were made for disposal of the liquid and solid waste. Two containers of Hydrogen Cyanide were discovered on Thursday in a fiber drum that contained discarded paint cans. The containers were overpacked and will be disposed in a lab pack.
No other response actions to abate the threats posed by the release of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants have been taken at this Site.
The EPA is the lead agency for all on-site investigatory and removal functions.
The specific actions to be undertaken at the Site to address the immediate threats to human health and the environment include: 1) characterize, using analytical data and field screening, all waste found on-site, including drums, buckets, pails, vats, floor debris and any other waste found at the Site; 2) bulking and off-site disposal of hazardous material from abandoned drums, buckets, pails and vats; 3) removal and disposal of contaminated floor debris; 4) site restoration.
|
