[Federal Register: March 17, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 52)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Page 12604-12606]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr17mr04-26]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Part 300
[FRL-7637-3]
National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan;
National Priorities List
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.
ACTION: Notice of intent to delete the Hooker-102nd Street Superfund
Site from the National Priorities List.
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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (the ``EPA'' or the
``Agency''), Region 2, announces its intent to delete the Hooker-102nd
Street Superfund Site (Site) from the National Priorities List (NPL)
and requests public comment on this action.
The NPL is Appendix B of the; National Oil and Hazardous Substances
Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP), 40 CFR Part 300, which the EPA
promulgated pursuant to Section 105 of the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), as amended.
The EPA and New York State, through its Department of Environmental
Conservation (NYSDEC) have determined that all appropriate response
actions under CERCLA have been implemented and that no further response
actions, other than operation, maintenance, and monitoring, are
required. Moreover, the EPA and the NYSDEC have determined that the
Site no longer poses a significant threat to public health or the
environment. The Site is located in the City of Niagara Falls, Niagara
County, New York.
DATES: The EPA will accept comments concerning its intent to delete on
or before April 16, 2004.
ADDRESSES: Comments should be mailed to: Paul J. Olivo, Hooker-102nd
Street Site Remedial Project Manager, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Region 2, 290 Broadway, 20th Floor, New York, New York 10007-
1866.
Comprehensive information on the Site is available for viewing, by
appointment only, at: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2,
Superfund Records Center, 290 Broadway, Room 1828, New York, New York
10007-1866, (212) 637-4308.
[[Page 12605]]
Hours: Monday through Friday: 9 a.m. through 5 p.m.
Information on the Site is also available for viewing at the Site
Administrative Record Repository located at: U.S. EPA Public
Information Office, 345 Third Street, Suite 530, Niagara Falls, New
York 14303, Tel. (716) 285-8842. Hours: Monday through Friday: 8 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Olivo at the address above, by
telephone at (212) 637-4280, by electronic mail at Olivo.Paul@epa.gov,
or by FAX at (212) 637-4284.
Supplementary Information Concerning the Hooker (102nd Street) Site:
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. NPL Deletion Criteria
III. Deletion Procedures
IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion
I. Introduction
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 2, announces its
intent to delete the Hooker-102nd Street Superfund Site (Site) from the
National Priorities List (NPL) and requests public comment on this
deletion. The EPA maintains the NPL as a list of sites that appear to
present a significant risk to public health, or the environment. As
described in Sec. 300.425(e)(3) of the NCP, a site deleted from the
NPL remains eligible for Fund-financed remedial actions, if conditions
at the site warrant such action.
The EPA will accept comments concerning the deletion of this Site
from the NPL for thirty (30) days after publication of this document in
the Federal Register.
Section II of this document explains the criteria for deleting
sites from the NPL Section III discusses procedures that the EPA is
using for this action. Section IV discusses how the Site meets the NPL
deletion criteria.
II. NPL Deletion Criteria
Section 300.425(e) of the NCP provides that sites may be deleted
from the NPL where no further response is appropriate. In making this
determination, the EPA, in consultation with the NYSDEC, will consider
whether any of the following criteria has been met:
(i) Responsible parties or other persons have implemented all
appropriate response actions required; or,
(ii) All appropriate Fund-financed responses under CERCLA have been
implemented, and no further response action by responsible parties is
appropriate; or,
(iii) A remedial investigation has shown that the release poses no
significant threat to public health or to the environment and,
therefore, taking remedial measures is not appropriate.
III. Deletion Procedures
The following procedures apply to the deletion of this Site:
1. The EPA, Region 2, issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for the
Site on September 26, 1990, which selected the remedy for the Site. The
ROD was amended on June 9, 1995.
2. Responsible parties implemented the remedy selected in the
amended ROD as described in a Final Closeout Report dated September 8,
2003.
3. The EPA, Region 2, recommends deletion and has prepared the
relevant documents.
4. The State of New York, through the NYSDEC, concurred with the
proposed deletion of the Site in a letter dated September 29, 2003.
5. A notice has been published in a local newspaper, and in
addition, a notice has been distributed to appropriate Federal, State
or local officials, and other interested parties announcing a thirty-
day public comment period which starts on the date of publication of
this notice in the Federal Register and a newspaper of record.
6. The EPA has made available the relevant documents to this
decision at the addresses listed above.
7. Upon completion of the thirty-day public comment period, the EPA
will evaluate all comments received before issuing a final decision on
deletion. The EPA, Region 2, will prepare a Responsiveness Summary, if
appropriate, which will address significant comments received during
the public comment period. The Responsiveness Summary will be made
available to the public at the information repositories.
8. If, after consideration of the comments received, the EPA
decides to proceed with the deletion, the EPA will place a Notice of
Deletion in the Federal Register. Deletion does not occur until the
final Notice of Deletion is published in the Federal Register.
Generally, the NPL will reflect deletions in the next final update
following the final Notice publication.
Deletion of a site from the NPL does not, by itself, alter, or
revoke any individual's rights or obligation. Deletion of a site from
the NPL does not alter the EPA's right to take appropriate enforcement
actions. The NPL is primarily for informational purposes and to assist
EPA management.
IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion
The following summary provides a brief description and history of
the Site and the Agency's rationale for recommending deletion of the
Site from the NPL.
The Site consists of two land parcels totaling 22.1 acres. The
Occidental Chemical Corporation (OCC), formerly the Hooker Chemical and
Plastics Corporation, owns 15.6 acres, and the remaining 6.5 acres are
owned by the Olin Chemical Corporation (Olin). The Site is located on
Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls, Niagara County, New York. It borders
on the Niagara River, and lies less than one-quarter of a mile south of
the Love Canal Superfund Site. It is separated from the Love Canal Site
by the LaSalle Expressway, Buffalo Avenue and Frontier Avenue.
Since the mid-1940s, the Site was used as an industrial waste
landfill. In the early 1970s, landfilling operations at the Site were
stopped. OCC and Olin remain as the current owners of the Site. During
the period of active waste disposal at the Site, OCC and Olin deposited
at least 159,000 tons of wastes, in both liquid and solid forms, into
the landfill. These deposits included approximately 4,600 tons of
benzene, chlorobenzene, chlorophenols, and hexachlorocyclohexanes, all
of which are hazardous substances.
In 1979, the U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the EPA,
filed a lawsuit against OCC and Olin, two potentially responsible
parties (PRPs) for the Site's contamination, in order to put an end to
the continuing discharges and to clean up Site contamination. The PRPs,
with EPA and NYSDEC guidance, agreed to conduct a study into the nature
and extent of Site contamination and to recommend alternatives for the
cleanup of the Site.
The investigation included the landfill residues, contaminated fill
in an area outside the landfill, shallow ground water, bedrock ground
water, liquid waste, soil, river sediments, and storm drains. The
investigation was completed in 1990.
In September 1990, the EPA selected a remedy which included the
installation of a synthetic-lined cap; consolidation of contaminated
soils beneath the cap; surrounding the waste mass with a slurry wall;
dredging and incineration of highly contaminated sediments; dredging,
dewatering, and consolidation, beneath the cap, of the remaining
contaminated sediments; recovery and treatment of ground water;
incineration of any recovered NAPL (non-aqueous phase liquids);
monitoring; and restricting access to the
[[Page 12606]]
Site by the installation of additional security fencing.
In September 1991, the EPA issued the PRPs an Administrative Order
to conduct the remedial design and the remedial action. The two PRPs
agreed to comply with the Order. Design of the EPA-selected remedy was
begun in October 1991. The Intermediate Engineering Report (IER) was
approved by the EPA on August 31, 1993. However, certain concerns
raised by the federal and state natural resource trustees caused the
EPA to reexamine the remedial design as proposed in the IER. As a
result of the reexamination, the September 1990 ROD was amended in June
1995. The amendment eliminated the incineration contingency whereby all
highly contaminated sediments in an embayment area in the Niagara River
adjacent to the landfill would have had to be excavated and incinerated
were they to remain outside the final positioning of the slurry wall.
The slurry wall was in fact redesigned so as to be positioned to run as
close to the shoreline as was practical and still contain any migration
of the NAPL plumes. Remedial action activity began in April 1996. The
construction of the slurry wall was completed in 1996 along with
excavation of contaminated sediments from the embayment and
consolidation of these sediments into the landfill. The installation of
the permanent cap over the landfill was completed during the 1997
construction season.
The remedy for the Site was completed in March 1999 when the
forcemain system for pumping leachate from the landfill to the Love
Canal Treatment Facility became operational. A Preliminary Closeout
Report (PCOR) was approved by the EPA on September 2, 1999. The PCOR
documented the fact that all construction activities identified as
necessary remedial actions for the Site pursuant to the ROD, as
amended, had been completed. The forcemain system continues to pump
sufficient leachate from the landfill so as to maintain an inward
gradient across the slurry wall. The leachate pumping system reached
the steady-state phase in November 2000.
An Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Manual was developed and
implemented. Annual reports are provided to the EPA and the NYSDEC and
both the EPA and the NYSDEC believe that the reports for 2001 and 2002
confirm that the remedy for the Site has been successfully implemented.
A Consent Decree between EPA and the State of New York and OCC and
Olin was approved and entered by a federal court on October 1, 1999.
Under the terms of the Consent Decree, the PRPs agreed to implement the
long-term O&M for the Site and reimbursed to the EPA $6,800,000 of its
past costs plus interest. Additionally, OCC and Olin implemented
institutional controls in the form of deed notifications that the Site
property was subject to the terms of the Consent Decree, and use
restrictions that run with the land that prohibit future uses of the
property such as groundwater extraction or excavation that could
adversely affect the remedy for the Site. These institutional controls
are recorded in the property records of Niagara County.
The Site no longer poses a significant threat to human health or
the environment. However, hazardous substances remain at the Site above
levels that would allow for unlimited use with unrestricted exposure.
Pursuant to Section 121(c) of CERCLA, the EPA and/or the State will
review Site remedies no less often than every five years. The first
Five-Year Review for this Site was signed by the EPA on August 15,
2001, and concluded that the response actions implemented at the Site
are in accordance with the remedy selected by the EPA and that the
remedy continues to be protective of human health and the environment.
The next Five-Year Review will be completed before August 2006.
Public participation activities for this Site have been satisfied
as required in CERCLA Section 113(k), 42 U.S.C. 9613(k), and Section
117, 42 U.S.C. 9617. The ROD was subject to a public review process.
All other documents and information which the EPA relied on, or
considered in recommending this deletion are available for the public
to review at the information repositories.
One of the three criteria for site deletion is when ``responsible
parties or other persons have implemented all appropriate response
actions required'' (40 CFR 300.425(e)(1)(i)). The EPA, with the
concurrence of the State of New York, through the NYSDEC, believes that
this criterion for deletion has been met. Consequently, the EPA is
proposing deletion of this Site from the NPL.
Dated: March 4, 2004.
Kathleen C. Callahan,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region 2.
[FR Doc. 04-5873 Filed 3-16-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-M