The Parker Street Waste Site is a previously estimated 104-acre area located in an urban area of New Bedford, Bristol County, Massachusetts. The estimated extent of the Parker Street Waste Site, based upon data generated to date, is believed to be bounded to the north by Durfee Street, to the east by Liberty Street and the Oak Grove Cemetery, to the south by Hillman Street, and to the west by Summit Street. Centered around a former city-owned landfill, the Parker Street Waste Site includes the New Bedford High School campus, the recently constructed Keith Middle School (KMS), the Hetland Memorial Skating Rink property, Walsh Field, the new Andre McCoy Field, residential properties, New Bedford Housing Authority properties, Carabiner’s Indoor Climbing Facility, and two private apartment complexes.
For the past several years, the City of New Bedford has been addressing contamination at the Parker Street Waste Site pursuant to the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP), the State’s privatized cleanup program, and under a PCB cleanup approval issued by EPA Region 1 under the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA). On April 15, 2009, the EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, visited the City of New Bedford to announce funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 being made available for the cleanup of New Bedford Harbor. During this visit, various stakeholders raised concerns regarding the Parker Street Waste Site. In response to these concerns, EPA and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) conducted a public meeting on September 30, 2009, during which concerns regarding the scope and pace of the environmental assessment and clean up of the Site were voiced by residents and community leaders. One of their concerns included the unknown extent of contamination which could possibly extend into the largely residential neighborhoods surrounding the school campuses. At the meeting, EPA and the MassDEP committed to work with the City of New Bedford and community members to expedite further investigation of the boundaries of the Parker Street Waste Site, and to determine whether there is any immediate threat to human health and/or the environment related to contamination from the Site.
EPA and MassDEP mobilized to the Site on April 19, 2010 to establish the command post and work areas. Field sampling activities for the preliminary assessment/site investigation (PA/SI) began on April 26, 2010 and concluded in early June 2010. The site investigation identified several residential and commercial properties with elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and/ or heavy metals in soils at or near the surface, which pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health. The PA/SI was concluded and a time-critical removal action was recommended in the Site Investigation Closure Memorandum dated August 19, 2010. Although this phase of the PA/SI has concluded, an additional 24 residential and commercial properties were also sampled in September 2010 to determine whether there is an immediate threat present to human health and/or the environment, and to also further define the extent of the Site boundaries.
