[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 149 (Wednesday, August 4, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 42328-42330]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-19906]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Part 300
[FRL-6411-7]
National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan;
National Priorities List
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of intent to delete the 62nd Street Superfund site from
the National Priorities List: request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region
4 announces its intent to delete the 62nd Street Superfund Site from
the National Priorities List (NPL) and requests public comment on this
proposed action. The NPL constitutes Appendix B of 40 CFR part 300
which is the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution
Contingency Plan (NCP), which EPA promulgated pursuant to section 105
of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, as amended. EPA and the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) have determined that the
site poses no significant threat to public health or the environment
and therefore, further response measures pursuant to CERCLA are not
appropriate.
DATES: Comments concerning the proposed deletion of this site from the
NPL may be submitted on or before September 3, 1999.
ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to: Richard D. Green, Director, Waste
Management Division, United States Environmental Protection Agency,
Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8909, (404) 562-
8651.
Comprehensive information on this site is available through the EPA
Region 4 public docket, which is available for viewing at the
information repositories at two locations. Locations, contacts, phone
numbers and viewing hours are: Record Center, U.S. EPA Region 4, 61
Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8909, (404) 562-9530, hours: 8
a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday by appointment only; Tampa/
Hillsborough County Public Library/Special Collections, 900 North
Ashley, Tampa, Florida 33602, (813) 273-3652, hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday through Saturday.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Randa Chichakli, U.S. EPA Region 4,
Waste Management Division, 61 Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-
8909, (404) 562-8928.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Table of Contents:
I. Introduction
II. NPL Deletion Criteria
III. Deletion Procedures
IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion
I. Introduction
EPA Region 4 announces its intent to delete the 62nd Street
Superfund Site, Hillsborough County, Tampa, Florida, from the NPL,
which constitutes Appendix B of the NCP, 40 CFR part 300, and requests
comments on this deletion. The EPA identifies sites on the NPL that
appear to present a significant risk to public health, welfare, or the
environment. Sites on the NPL may be the subject of remedial actions
financed by the Hazardous Substance Superfund Trust Fund. Pursuant to
Sec. 300.425(e)(3) of the NCP, any site deleted from the NPL remains
eligible for Fund-financed remedial actions if conditions at the site
warrant such action.
EPA will accept comments on the proposal to delete this site from
the NPL for thirty calendar 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 EPA is using
for this action. Section IV discusses how this site meets the deletion
criteria.
II. NPL Deletion Criteria
The NCP establishes the criteria that the Agency uses to delete
sites from the NPL. In accordance with 40 CFR 300.425(e), sites maybe
deleted from or re-categorized on the NPL where no further response is
appropriate. In making this determination, EPA shall consider, in
consultation with the state, whether any of the following criteria have
been met:
1. Responsible parties or other persons have implemented all
appropriate response actions required;
2. All appropriate Fund-financed response under CERCLA has been
implemented, and no further response action by responsible parties is
appropriate; or
3. The remedial investigation has shown that the release poses no
significant threat to public health or the environment and, therefore,
taking of remedial measures is not appropriate.
If a site is deleted from the NPL where hazardous substances,
pollutants, or contaminants remain at the site above levels that allow
for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure, EPA's policy is that a
subsequent review of the site will be conducted at least every five
years after the initiation of the remedial action at the site to ensure
that the site remains protective of public health and the environment.
If new information becomes available which indicates a need for further
action, EPA may initiate remedial actions. Whenever there is a
significant release from a site deleted from the NPL, the site may be
restored to the NPL without the application of the Hazardous Ranking
System.
III. Deletion Procedures
EPA will accept and evaluate public comments before making a final
decision on deletion from the NPL. Comments from the local community
may be the most pertinent to deletion decisions. The following
procedures were used for the intended deletion of the Site:
1. EPA has recommended deletion and has prepared the relevant
documents;
[[Page 42329]]
2. FDEP has concurred with the deletion decision;
3. Concurrently with this Notice of Intent to Delete, notices have
been published in local newspapers and have been distributed to
appropriate federal, state and local officials and other interested
parties announcing a 30-day public comment period on the proposed
deletion from the NPL;
4. EPA has made all relevant documents available at the information
repositories; and
5. EPA will respond to significant comments, if any, submitted
during the public comment period.
Deletion of the site from the NPL does not itself create, alter, or
revoke any individual rights or obligations. The NPL is designed
primarily for informational purposes to assist Agency management. EPA
will prepare a Responsiveness Summary, if necessary, which will address
the comments received during the public comment period.
A deletion occurs when the Regional Administrator places a Notice
of Deletion in the Federal Register. Any deletions from the NPL will be
reflected in the next NPL update. Public notices and copies of the
Responsiveness Summary, if necessary, will be made available to local
residents by the Regional office.
IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion
The following site summary provides the Agency's rationale for the
intention to delete this Site from the National Priorities List.
The 62nd Street Superfund Site is located in Hillsborough County,
north of Columbus Drive and just west of 62nd Street on the east side
of the city of Tampa. The five and one-half acre site was formerly used
for the disposal of industrial waste and is located in an area with
mixed residential and light industrial land use. The site is bounded on
the west by a series of what were small, shallow fish breeding ponds.
To the east and south of the site are residential areas interspersed
with light commercial and industrial operations. To the north of the
site is undeveloped land.
In the late 1960's the 62nd Street Site was operated as a borrow
pit where sand was removed for use as fill material. When the borrow
operations ceased, the owner of the site allowed several companies in
the Tampa area to use the excavated pits for disposal of various waste
materials, including construction and demolition debris, cement kiln
dust, battery wastes, waste materials from an automobile shredder and
other wastes. In 1976, the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection
Commission (HCEPC) issued a notice to cease all disposal activities at
the site due to fish kills which occurred in the fish breeding ponds
located west of the 62nd Street Site. However, unauthorized disposal of
household garbage and construction debris continued after that date.
Between 1979 and 1980, the site was investigated by many
contractors on behalf of Peninsular Fisheries, Inc. These studies
concluded that the 62nd Street Site had a hydraulic connection to the
fish breeding ponds and was adversely impacting the water quality in
these ponds. Environmental sampling was conducted periodically by HCEPC
and the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation (FDER) at
private wells, fish breeding ponds, a shallow sand point well installed
by FDER and various other areas surrounding the site. An analysis of a
sample from the shallow sand point well showed levels of chromium which
exceeded the FDER groundwater standard. In December 1982, the site was
proposed for inclusion on the National Priority List (NPL) which became
final in September 1983.
In March 1984, the FDER and EPA entered into a Cooperative
Agreement for FDER to conduct a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility
Study (RI/FS) at the site. For study purposes, the wastes present at
the site were divided into two groups: cement waste and non-cement
waste. The waste consisting of cement, cement kiln dust, and cement
slag was designated as cement waste and the wastes from the automobile
shredder, battery wastes, and other wastes were designated as non-
cement wastes.
The RI was conducted between February 1986 and September 1987. The
major RI activities at the site consisted of the excavation of 12 test
pits and installation of 14 groundwater monitoring wells which were
designed to screen within the surficial aquifer and the underlying
artesian Floridan aquifer. Chemical analyses were performed on soil,
sediment, surface water and groundwater samples recovered from the site
as well as from surrounding areas as part of the RI.
The soil and groundwater investigations at the 62nd Street site
revealed that the non-cement waste containing antimony, arsenic,
cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs) could be a potential risk to human health, but the cement waste
presented little threat through direct contact or leaching into the
groundwater. During the RI/FS, unfiltered groundwater samples from the
surficial aquifer at, and downgradient of the site were found to
contain cadmium, chromium and lead at levels exceeding the Maximum
Concentration Levels (MCLs) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
Chromium was the most common contaminant that exceeded the MCLs and the
second most common was lead.
On June 27, 1990, consistent with the remedy proposed in the RI/FS,
the EPA Region 4 Administrator approved a Record of Decision (ROD). The
chosen remedy specified in the ROD called for:
(1) Solidification/stabilization (S/S) of the battery wastes,
shredded auto parts, and contaminated soils,
(2) No treatment of the on-site cement wastes, since they presented
little threat through either direct contact or leaching to groundwater,
(3) Capping of the entire site with a two-foot vegetative soil
cover underlain by an impermeable membrane,
(4) Extraction and treatment of the groundwater from the surficial
aquifer both on-site and off-site, and
(5) Institutional controls or other land use restrictions to ensure
the integrity of the cap and preclude exposure to the treated soils.
The selected remedy established clean-up levels for contaminants in
the groundwater based on the MCLs for cadmium and chromium. The clean-
up levels for lead were based on the EPA recommended clean-up level for
lead in groundwater. The clean-up criteria for contaminated soils were
based on consideration of health effects and leaching to groundwater.
The EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order in April 1991 to
several Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) including David J.
Joseph Company and Lafarge Corporation. This order directed the PRPs to
develop a Remedial Design for the remedy as described in the ROD and
then to implement that remedy by performing a Remedial Action. A
Consent Decree for the Remedial Design/Remedial Action was signed by
the PRPs in August 1991. The Remedial Design began in November 1991, by
the PRPs' contractor Ardaman & Associates, Inc. The Remedial Design
considered all design elements required by the directives of the ROD
plus a soil-bentonite cut-off wall around the perimeter of the site to
facilitate dewatering during remediation and to reduce long term
migration of groundwater through the solidified materials beneath the
site after remediation.
In September 1991 an Explanation of Significant Difference (ESD)
was issued which revised the lead clean-up criteria
[[Page 42330]]
and provided for the disposal of non-contaminated construction-type
debris.
On June 29, 1995, the ROD was amended to eliminate the requirement
to extract and treat groundwater from the surficial aquifer on-site and
off-site, since monitoring of the groundwater in monitor wells located
hydraulically downgradient of the site revealed the concentrations of
cadmium, chromium, and lead were below the established clean-up levels.
A Pre-Final Inspection was conducted on May 24, 1994, when the S/S
activities were near completion. A Final Inspection was conducted at
the site on June 13, 1995, upon completion of the top cover. As a
result of this Final Inspection, it was determined that all outstanding
remedial tasks noted in the Pre-Final Inspection Report had been
resolved and all outstanding construction activities had been
completed.
As a result of the activities, all objectives of ROD have been met
with the exception of the requirement to extract and treat groundwater
which was eliminated in a ROD amendment on June 29, 1995.
No specific operational tasks are required for the 62nd Street
Site. However, periodic maintenance activities are anticipated to
control vegetation and to repair any erosional damage to exposed areas
of the top cover and ditches. Routine maintenance of the top cover and
drainage ditches will incorporate mowing, weed control and erosion
damage repair. Also, once annually during the month of December,
groundwater sampling and analysis will be performed to confirm that the
cadmium, chromium, and lead concentrations in both filtered and
unfiltered groundwater remain below the respective clean-up levels for
these parameters.
EPA conducted a five-year review on June 18, 1999 and concluded
that the Remedial Action Objectives have been achieved, the remedy is
effective and functioning as designed, and continues to remain
protective of human health and the environment. EPA has determined that
all completion requirements and appropriate actions at the 62nd Street
Superfund Site have been completed, and that no further remedial action
is necessary. Therefore, EPA is proposing deletion of the site from the
NPL.
Dated: July 12, 1999.
A. Stanley Meiburg,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region 4.
[FR Doc. 99-19906 Filed 8-3-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P