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Superfund Program Implements the Recovery Act

Frontier Fertilizer

Davis, California

Site Description
The 18-acre site, currently zoned for light industrial use, was first developed in the 1950s as an area to store agricultural equipment.  Several companies from the early 1970s used a 4,000-cubic-foot unlined basin in the northern portion of the site to dispose of unused pesticides and fertilizers resulting in soil and ground water contamination. The contaminants of concern (COCs) in soil are primarily pesticides while the COCs in the ground water are pesticides and carbon tetrachloride.  The contaminated ground water plume extends approximately 600 feet north from the site beneath a residential housing area.

Cleanup Activities to Date
EPA added the site to the National Priorities List in 1994.  Since1995, EPA has operated a ground water extraction and treatment system with granular activated carbon, which typically uses 16 extraction wells to remove contaminated ground water.  In 2006, EPA selected a final cleanup approach to address the soil and ground water cleanup.  The selected remedy for the site is to continue operation of the ground water pump and treat system and conduct in-place electrical resistive heating (ERH) to treat soil and ground water.  To enable the community to become more directly involved in the investigation and cleanup activities, EPA awarded a Technical Assistance Grant to the Frontier Fertilizer Site Oversight Group in 1995.

Recovery Act Project Activity
EPA is nearing completion of the design for the in-place ERH system to treat pesticide-contaminated soil and ground water to a depth of 80 feet below the ground surface.  However, recently collected data indicate much higher levels of contamination at greater depths, which will require additional infrastructure and power to treat.  Given these additional needs, EPA will use the up to $5 million in Recovery Act money allocated to this site to fund the expansion of the heating system and associated power costs to address the deeper contamination.  EPA anticipates that this additional treatment will accelerate cleanup by removing greater contaminant mass in soil and, thereby, reducing the contaminants affecting ground water resources, a potential source of drinking water.

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