The Wateree Chemical Company is located off an unnamed dirt road that runs 0.75 miles south of the intersection of US Highway 1 and Secondary Road 369 between the towns of Lugoff and Elgin in Kershaw County, South Carolina. The Site is the location of a former chemical manufacturing facility that operated from 1964 to 1976. Wateree Chemical manufactured a variety of chemicals for sale to schools, industries, and foreign countries. Major products included carboxylic acids, organohalides, organonitrates and organosulfur compunds. Other products included amines, ethers and hydrocarbons.
Wateree Chemical ceased operations prior to the inception of RCRA regulations, so the company was never permitted to treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste on-site. Waste from the chemical manufacturing process and cooling water were discharged into a sand hill and allowed to percolate through the soil at a designated waste pit. Prior to discharge chemicals were either oxidized or diluted using chromic acid, peroxides or sodium cyanide.
