1.1.1  Incident Category

Inactive production facility.

1.1.2     Site Description

The Site located in a mixed residential/commercial/industrial neighborhood at 215 Chandler Street in Buffalo, Erie County, New York.  The property has been inactive since October 2005.  Prior to EPA removal actions and subsequent demolition of the site buildings by the City of Buffalo, the Site consisted of an unoccupied, abandoned two-story brick building believed to be approximately 100 years old.  Universal Precision Machine and Welding Corporation and the property owner of record, Combined Supply and Equipment Company, utilized the building.  It is believed that the latter was a foundry supply company and the former, a machine shop conducting contract machining, die casting, and other repairing and rebuilding services.  Combined Supply and Equipment Company operated at the Site beginning in 1941.

1.1.2.2 Description of Threat

Prior to EPA stabilization and removal of waste actions, the roof had collapsed to allow rainfall and snow melt to enter the building. This had lead to standing water on the floor, drums and other containers.  Most of the doorways and windows were open and/or broken which provided a route for hazardous substances to be released into the environment via wind currents.  Furthermore, in the event of a fire in the main building, these hazardous substances would have been released into the air which would result in their migration into adjacent residential neighborhoods.  Trespassers entering the building would have come into direct contact with hazardous substances and may have tracked the contamination off-Site.

Removal of the drums and laboratory chemicals from the site, and stabilization of the roof and removal of Presumed Asbestos Containing Materials (PACM) waste, allowed for coordination with the City of Buffalo for Demolition of site buildings to be completed.  Upon inspection by EPA personnel on October 25, 2011, the EPA confirmed that the site buildings were removed and the threat from the building had beenj eliminated.  This date of inspection marks the completion date of the site cleanup. 


1.1.2       Preliminary Removal Assessment/Removal Site Inspection Results

On August 18, 2010, On-Scene Coordinators from the Removal Action Branch conducted a site visit as part of the removal assessment.  An entry was made into the building to assess the conditions.  The first floor showed evidence of vandalism.  Containers of varied sizes were scattered throughout the first floor.  Rainfall was entering the building from the open roof area on the second floor and seeping throughout the remainder of the structure.  The wooden floors were damaged, soft, and/or have buckled in places.  There was also evidence of widespread mold and moss on the floors and other objects.  A concrete slab was reported to be beneath the structure, but subsequent cleanup actions showed that the concrete was thin and broken.  Evidence of oily, discolored material was present beneath some of the wood floor boards. 

During the entry, hundreds of containers of varying size were observed on the first floor.  Container labels that could be observed on the first floor indicated the presence of a variety of labeled flammable solvents, including methylene chloride, methyl ethyl ketone and acetone.  Some of the containers had open tops, and/or material on the drum top that had oozed or spilled out of the container.  A storage room in the center of the structure, containing approximately 125 small containers, many of which were rusted and leaking, was damaged from water seepage from the second floor.  The floor, walls, and shelves were coated with material from these containers and/or others potentially stored on the second floor.  Two electrical transformers were also observed with most of the dielectric fluid not present in the units.  The transformers and electrical equipment in this area along the western wall have been scavenged.  Two windows on the west side of the building are open and provide accessible points into this area.

Observations were very limited on the second floor due to the roof collapses.  At least 100 containers of varying size, including metal, plastic and wooden drums were observed scattered throughout the portion of the second floor that was visible.  The containers, in some cases, were covered by roof debris and combustible rubbish. Included in these containers was a group of approximately 20, 5-gallon containers labeled as flammable.  It was expected, based on observations, that other containers were present on the second floor.

Air monitoring on the first floor with a photo ionization detector (PID), using a 10.6ev lamp, detected organic vapors at a maximum reading of as high as one part per million (ppm) above background.  Using an 11.6ev lamp, organic vapor readings were generally 15 to 20 ppm above background throughout most of the first floor, and were detected as high as 70 ppm in some locations near containers and spillage.  No significant readings were observed with a flame ionization detector, combustible gas meter, and radiation meter.

Some of the pipes on both floors of the building were encased with insulation that is PACM. Much of the insulation had either fallen off the pipes onto the floor or objects below the pipes, or had been damaged.  The insulation was exposed to the outside elements via the broken windows on both floors and the damaged roof on the second floor.

The second floor face of the building on Bridgeman Street was leaning inward due to the roof collapses on the second floor.  Based on historical aerial photography, the roof had deteriorated and collapsed within the past three years, if not more recently.  Many of the windows on the second floor were broken due to vandalism, however,  and several of the window frames were buckling due to the structural stress being imposed by the roof collapses.  Large timbers beams that supported the wooden roof structure had buckled and in some cases cracked.  As a result, a significant portion of the second floor was exposed to the atmosphere.  Structural damage had been done to both central and perimeter beams.  The timber beams were constructed in such a manner that only a small portion of their ends rested on a support column.  The same construction technique was present on the first floor, where a few of the first floor beams appeared to be slightly bowed.

The information contained on the labels of some of the containers indicated flammable and corrosive materials.  These materials at one time were product being used at the Site,  however, and their abandoned state and deteriorated condition indicate that these materials were now waste.  Based on this information, these waste materials that were flammable and corrosive are considered CERCLA designated hazardous substances.  The containers with unknown contents contained additional CERCLA designated hazardous substances.  In addition, the pipe insulation that is PACM and in a friable state is a CERCLA designated hazardous substance.  The leakage of unknown chemicals from containers and the damaged insulation that is PACM constitutes a "release”.

2.         Current Activities

    2.1       Operations Section

        2.1.1   Current Activies 

2.1.2       Response Actions to Date

• POLREP 3 summarizes response actions prior to the date of the last shipment of waste in December, 2010. 

2.2    Planning Section

    2.2.1  Anticipated Activities

        2.2.1.1 Planned Response Activities

None.  
    
    2.2.1.2 Next Steps

None.  

    2.2.2 Issues

None at this time.