The Owens Plating Company Site which is located in Rainbow City, Etowah County, Alabama was a metal plating facility that operated three zinc-on-carbon-steel processes. The Site is a former electroplating facility that ceased operations in early 2003 and shut down the premises in 2004.
The Site consists of a large combined building that is approximately 56,500 square feet in size. The site is located at 1440 Sutton Bridge Road in Rainbow City, Etowah County, Alabama. The site sits in a mixed-use community, with industry and residences nearby. The 56,500 square foot facility’s wall structure is compromised and allows for easy access into the facility. The facility has an area containing approximately 117 vats and 388 55-gallon drums along with approximately 1,000 small containers located in the laboratory. These containers range in size from 100 milliliters to 5 gallons. Many of the drums and small containers are unlabeled and the contents of the 177 plating line and water treatment vats have not been identified. The plating vats all have material present, either in liquid or solid/sludge form. The facility has rapidly deteriorated due to the corrosive environment produced by the abandoned plating lines.
Initial site work focused on setting up equipment and work areas. Chemical containers were then staged for sampling, which was
performed by START and ERRS. Additionally, the production line vats were sampled. The samples
were subjected to field characterization sampling, and START and ERRS developed a bulking scheme based on the compatibility of the chemicals. The chemicals were bulked into several large waste streams and sampled for disposal profiling. After bulking, one non-hazardous and six hazardous chemical waste streams were developed and profiled. This material was transported to approved,
licensed treatment facilities for a variety of treatment options. Because some parts of the roof had collapsed onto chemical containers, ERRS brought in heavy equipment and dismantled the building. This also allowed the material in the vats to be removed more efficiently prior to bulking. After the building was dismantled, START collected soil samples from several areas of visually impacted soil beneath the foundation slab. No analytes exceeded the RALs for the site, although EPA decided to remove some areas of highly discolored and obviously impacted soil given the proximity of the facility to nearby residential areas and sensitive wetlands. START also sampled on- and off-site soils.
Site completed 10/07
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