[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 157 (Monday, August 16, 1999)] [Proposed Rules] [Pages 44452-44454] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 99-21010] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 40 CFR Part 300 [FRL-6420-9] National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan; National Priorities List AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ACTION: Notice of intent to delete the Darling Hill Dump site from the National Priorities List; request for comments. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region I announces its intent to delete the Darling Hill Dump Site from the National Priorities List (NPL) and requests public comment on this action. The NPL constitutes appendix B of 40 CFR part 300 which is the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP), which EPA promulgated pursuant to section 105 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, (CERCLA) as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act. After consultation with the State of Vermont, EPA has determined that the responsible parties have implemented all appropriate response actions required. DATES: Comments concerning this site must be submitted on or before September 15, 1999. ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to: William Lovely, Remedial Project Manager, U.S. EPA Region I , 1 Congress Street, Suite 1100 (HBT), Boston, MA 02114-2023. Comprehensive information on this site is available through the EPA Region I public records center, which is located at EPA's Region I office and is available for viewing by appointment only Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Requests for appointments or copies of the contents from the Regional records should be directed to the EPA Region I Records Center. [[Page 44453]] The address for the Region I Records Center is: EPA Records Center, 1 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02114-2023, (617) 918-1440. A copy of the public records is also available for viewing at the Darling Hill Dump Site information repository at: Town Hall, Town of Lyndon, 24 Main St., Lyndonville, VT 05851. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Lovely, Remedial Project Manager, U.S. EPA Region I, 1 Congress St., Suite 1100 (HBT), Boston, MA 02114-2023, (617) 918-1240. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Table of Contents I. Introduction II. NPL Deletion Criteria III. Deletion Procedures IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion I. Introduction The Environmental Protection Agency, Region I announces its intent to delete the Darling Hill Dump, Lyndon, Vermont, from the National Priorities List (NPL) which constitutes appendix B of the NCP (40 CFR part 300), and requests public comment on this deletion. EPA identifies sites that appear to present a significant risk to public health, welfare, or the environment and maintains the NPL as the list of these sites. Sites on the NPL may be the subject of remedial actions financed by the Hazardous Substance Superfund Response Trust Fund (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 concerning this proposal for thirty (30) days after publication of this document in the Federal Register. 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)(1) of the NCP, sites may be deleted from or recategorized on the NPL where no further response is appropriate. In making a determination to delete a site from the NPL, EPA shall consider, in consultation with the State, whether any of the following criteria have been met: (i) Responsible parties or other persons have implemented all appropriate response actions required; (ii) All appropriate Fund-financed responses under CERCLA have been implemented, and no further response actions by responsible parties are appropriate; or (iii) 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. Deletion of a site from the NPL does not preclude eligibility for subsequent Fund-financed actions if future site conditions warrant such action. Section 300.425(e)(3) of the NCP states that Fund-financed actions may be taken at sites that have been deleted from the NPL. III. Deletion Procedures In the NPL rulemaking published on October 15, 1984 (49 FR 40320), the Agency solicited and received comments on whether the notice of comment procedures followed for adding sites to the NPL also should be used before the sites are deleted. Comments also were received in response to the amendments to the NCP proposed on February 12, 1985 (50 FR 5862). Formal notice and comment procedures for delisting sites from the NPL were subsequently added as part of the March 8, 1990 amendments to the NCP (55 FR 8666 and 8846). Those procedures are set out in Sec. 300.425(e)(4) of the NCP. Deletion of sites from the NPL does not itself create, alter, or revoke any individual's rights or obligations. The NPL is designed primarily for informational purposes and to assist Agency management. Upon determination that at least one of the criteria described in Sec. 300.425(e)(1) has been met, EPA may formally begin the deletion process. The following procedures were used for the intended deletion of this site: (1) EPA Region I issued a Record of Decision which documented that no further CERCLA action is required at the Darling Hill Dump Site. (2) EPA Region I has recommended deletion and prepared the relevant documents. (3) The State of Vermont has concurred with EPA's decision to delete. The State has not made the determinations which underlie the decision to delete. (4) Concurrent with this National Notice of Intent to Delete, a local notice has been published in local newspapers and has been distributed to appropriate federal, state and local officials and other interested parties. (5) The Region has made all relevant documents available in the Regional Office and the local site information repository. These procedures have been completed for the Darling Hill Dump Site. This Federal Register document, and a concurrent notice in the local newspaper in the vicinity of the site, announces the initiation of a 30-day public comment period and the availability of the Notice of Intent to Delete. The public is asked to comment on EPA's intention to delete the site from the NPL; all critical documents needed to evaluate EPA's decision are included in the information repository and deletion docket. Upon completion of the 30-day public comment period, the EPA Regional Office (Region I) will evaluate the comments before the final decision to delete. The Region will prepare a Responsiveness Summary, which will address comments received during the public comment period. The responsiveness summary will be made available to the public at the information repository. Members of the public are welcome to contact the EPA Regional Office to obtain a copy of the responsiveness summary, when available. If EPA still determines that deletion from the NPL is appropriate, after receiving public comments, a final notice of deletion will be published in the Federal Register. However, it is not until a final notice of deletion is published in the Federal Register that the site would be actually deleted. IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion The following summary provides the Agency's rationale for delisting the Darling Hill Dump site from the NPL. The Darling Hill Dump is an inactive solid waste disposal facility located near the Village of Lyndonville, Vermont, within the Town of Lyndon, in Caledonia County, in the northeast part of Vermont. The 3.5 acre site is located on the top of the north-facing slope of Darling Hill which is bounded to the east and south by Darling Hill Road. The land east of Darling Hill Road slopes steeply downward to the east branch of the Passumpsic River. West of the Darling Hill Dump is a woodland area which slopes steeply down to the west branch of the Passumpsic River. The Darling Hill Dump operated as a municipal and industrial waste disposal facility from 1952 though 1983. Routine testing by the State of Vermont in 1982 revealed the presence of low level, volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the Village of Lyndonville's Municipal Wellfield. Given the wellfield's close proximity to the Site (0.5 mile), the State of Vermont completed a Preliminary Assessment (PA) and Site Inspection (SI) of the dump in 1985 to determine whether or not it was the source of contamination. The SI report concluded that the dump was a possible source of contamination at the municipal well field and recommended further study. EPA subsequently performed an Expanded Site Inspection [[Page 44454]] (ESI) of the Darling Hill Dump from 1986 to1989 and concluded that it was the most likely source of contamination. As a result of this conclusion, the Darling Hill Dump was proposed to the NPL in June 1988 and promulgated on October 4, 1989. Following the addition of the Darling Hill Dump to the NPL, the potentially responsible parties (PRPs) for the site contamination signed two Administrative Orders by Consent in 1989 that required them to: (1) Perform a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study under EPA oversight and; (2) install a carbon filtration system at the municipal well field. The purpose of the remedial investigation was to delineate the nature and extent of contamination in all media (i.e. air, soil, surface water, groundwater and sediment) throughout the Site and determine whether such contamination posed a threat to human health and the environment. Installation of the carbon filtration system would prevent ingestion of the low levels of contamination previously identified. In January 1992, EPA published a fact sheet which summarized the findings of the RI/FS. Although the RI/FS found low levels of contamination in both soil and groundwater, a Baseline Risk Assessment concluded that contamination from the Darling Hill Dump does not pose an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment. Moreover, installation of the carbon filter in the municipal water supply helps to ensure that the groundwater at the municipal well field remains within Federal drinking water standards. The Village of Lyndonville is responsible for monitoring the carbon filtration system and municipal well field. Based on the results of the RI/FS, a Proposed Plan recommending No Action was released for thirty (30) day public comment period. Following the public comment period, a Record of Decision (ROD) for the Site was signed on June 30, 1992. The ROD documented the decision that no further CERCLA action was necessary at the Darling Hill Dump. As such, the statutory requirements of CERCLA section 121 for remedial actions are not applicable and no five year review is required. However, to ensure the long term effectiveness of the initial actions, EPA and the PRPs entered into an Administrative Order by Consent which required a minimum of five years of post-ROD monitoring. This monitoring concluded in 1997 since the analytical results supported the earlier decision that no further CERCLA actions were necessary. One of the three criteria for deletion specifies that EPA may delete a site from the NPL if ``Responsible parties or other persons have implemented all appropriate response actions required.'' EPA, with concurrence from the State of Vermont, believes that this criterion for deletion has been met. As a result, EPA is proposing deletion of this Site from the NPL. Documents supporting this action are available from the public records center. Dated: July 29, 1999. Donald Berger, Acting Director, Office of Site Remediation and Restoration, Region I. [FR Doc. 99-21010 Filed 8-13-99; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6560-50-P