The Carter Carburetor Site includes two dilapidated buildings and two associated vacant lots in St. Louis, Missouri. The Site is in an Environmental Justice community. The primary contaminants found at this site include poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCB), trichloroethylene (TCE) and asbestos. The Site is in a commercial area with residential areas nearby.
The EPA has identified two Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs): ACF Industries and Carter Building Incorporated (hereinafter ACF and CBI). ACF was the former owner of the buildings and CBI is the current owner of the buildings. ACF has spent several million dollars identifying the extent of contamination and quantifying the potential human health risks at the Site under a CERCLA Administrative Settlement Agreement and Order on Consent. ACF has prepared an Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis (EE/CA) laying out several cleanup alternatives for four distinct areas of the Site: the CBI Building, the Die Cast Area, the former aboveground TCE storage tank area, and the Willco Plastics Building. The EE/CA was finalized and submitted to the public for comment in September 2010.
After extending the public comment period several times, the EPA received numerous comments on the EE/CA. Responses to all substantial comments received from the public were documented in the site Responsiveness Summary. Taking into account comments from the community, the Region 7 Administrator signed an Action Memorandum in March 2011, documenting the appropriate removal actions to address contamination in each of the four areas described above.
In December 2011, ACF voluntarily completed installing a fence around the Site to prevent unauthorized access and entry into the contaminated buildings.
The EPA completed negotiations with the PRPs and submitted the Settlement Agreements to the public for comment. Comments were received, evaluated and responsiveness summaries were prepared, and the Agreements became final.
As part of the negotiations, the EPA agreed to remove debris from the building which belonged to previous unknown tenants of the building and is potentially asbestos-contaminated. This fund-lead action was performed pursuant to an Action Memorandum signed by the Regional Administrator and concurred on by EPA Headquarters, Office of Emergency Managment (OEM), due to the potential for asbestos in the debris.
Fund-lead debris removal actions for the CBI Building are complete.
During this reporting period, the responsible parties completely demolished the onsite building structures. No further debris or ACM will be removed from the buildings as part of the fund-lead removal action since the buildings are no longer present. Per the enforcement order, the responsible parties have assumed the security for the site including maintenance of the perimeter fencing and operation of a full video camera surveillance system.
No further fund-lead removal actions are planned for the Carter Carburetor site. The remaining removal activities will be conducted in accordance with the existing enforcement action.
Any additional steps will be conducted under the existing enforcement order.
The final disposal numbers for the fund-lead removal action are 296 tons of debris which was sent off site to a landfill facility; 116 cubic yards of asbestos containing material which was disposed of at a landfill; and 78 tons of recyclables which was sent to an off-site recycling facility.
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