[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 180 (Monday, September 17, 2001)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 48018-48020]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-22998]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 300

[FRL-7056-4]


National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan; 
National Priorities List

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice of intent to delete Aladdin Plating Superfund Site from 
the National Priorities List; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region III announces 
its intent to delete the Aladdin Plating Superfund Site (Site) located 
in Scott and South Abington Townships, Lackawanna County, Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania, 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), as amended. EPA and the Pennsylvania 
Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) have determined that the 
remedial action for the site has been successfully executed.

DATES: Comments concerning the proposed deletion of this Site from the 
NPL may be submitted on or before October 17, 2001.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to: Patrick McManus (3HS21), Remedial 
Project Manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1650 
Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103-2029.
    Comprehensive information, including the deletion docket, on this 
Site is available for viewing at the Site information repositories at 
the following locations: Regional Center for Environmental Information, 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1650 Arch Street, 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103, 215-814-5254 or 800-553-2509, Monday 
through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Scott Township Municipal Building, 
Route 457, Olyphant, PA 18447, 570-254-6969; South Abington Township 
Building, 104 Shady Lane, Montdale, PA 18410, 570-586-2111.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Patrick McManus (3HS21), Remedial 
Project Manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1650 
Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103-2029. Telephone 215-814-
3198 or 800-553-2509, e-mail address: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. NPL Deletion Criteria
III. Deletion Procedures
IV. Basis of Intended Site Deletion

I. Introduction

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III announces its 
intent to delete the Aladdin Plating Superfund Site from the NPL, 
appendix B of the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution 
Contingency Plan (NCP), 40 CFR part 300, and requests public comments 
on this proposed action. 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. As described in 
Sec. 300.425(e)(3) of the NCP, sites deleted from the NPL remain 
eligible for remedial actions in the unlikely event that future 
conditions warrant such action at the site.
    EPA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection 
(PADEP) have determined that remedial activities conducted at the Site 
have been successfully executed.
    EPA will accept comments on the proposal to delete this Site for 
thirty calendar days after publication of this notice in the Federal 
Register.
    Section II of this document explains the criteria for deleting 
sites from the NPL. Section III discusses the procedures that EPA is 
using for this action. Section IV discusses the Aladdin Plating 
Superfund Site and explains how the Site meets the deletion criteria.

II. NPL Deletion Criteria

    The NCP established the criteria that EPA uses to delete sites from 
the NPL. In accordance with 40 CFR 300.425(e), sites may be deleted 
from 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:
    (i) The responsible parties or other parties have implemented all 
appropriate response actions required; or
    (ii) All appropriate Fund-financed responses under CERCLA have been 
implemented and no further action by responsible parties is 
appropriate; or
    (iii) The remedial investigation has shown that the release poses 
no significant threat to public health or the environment and, 
therefore, remedial measures are not appropriate.
    Even when 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 will 
conduct a review of the site 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 Hazard Ranking 
System.

III. Deletion Procedures

    The following procedures were used for the intended deletion of 
this Site:
    1. EPA Region III has recommended deletion and has prepared the 
relevant documents. All appropriate response actions required under 
CERCLA have been implemented.
    2. PADEP has concurred with the deletion decision.
    3. Concurrent with this Notice of Intent to Delete, an 
advertisement in a local newspaper presents information on the Site and 
announces the commencement of the thirty (30) day public comment period 
on the deletion package.
    4. The EPA Region III Office has made all relevant documents 
supporting the proposed deletion available for the public to review in 
the Site information repositories identified above.
    Deletion of the Site 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 EPA management. As 
mentioned in section II of this document, Sec. 300.425(e)(3) of the NCP 
states that the deletion of a site from the NPL does not preclude 
eligibility for future response actions.
    For deletion of this Site, EPA's Regional Office will accept and 
evaluate public comments on EPA's Notice of Intent to Delete before 
making a final decision to delete. If necessary, the EPA will prepare a 
Responsiveness Summary

[[Page 48019]]

to address any significant public comments received.
    A deletion occurs when the EPA Region III Regional Administrator 
places a final notice, a Notice of Deletion, in the Federal Register. 
Generally, the NPL will reflect deletions in the final update. Public 
notices and copies of the Responsiveness Summary will be made available 
to the public by the EPA Regional Office.

IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion

    The following summary provides the EPA's rationale for the proposal 
to delete this Site from the NPL.

Site Location

    The Aladdin Plating Superfund Site is located near Scranton, 
Pennsylvania, on Layton Road in Scott and South Abington Townships, 
Lackawanna County, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, approximately 1.5 
miles north of the town of Chinchilla. The Site is surrounded on all 
sides by residential properties. The Site comprises approximately 6 
acres on a hillside. The topography slopes steeply away from the Site 
on three of its sides.
    A residential community of approximately fifty homes is located to 
the south and east within one-half mile of the Site. The area between 
the Site and Griffin Reservoir, which is north of the Site, is wooded 
and is sparsely populated. The nearest residential wells are within 500 
feet of the Site.

Site History

    Site contamination resulted from electroplating activities 
conducted from 1947 to 1982 by the Aladdin Electroplating Company. This 
company was primarily involved in chromium electroplating, but also 
conducted electroless nickel plating and decorative electroplating 
using copper and nickel. In addition to these three metals, various 
plating baths used at the facility contained sulfuric, chromic, and 
hydrochloric acids, as well as caustic and cyanide solutions. Liquid 
wastes generated by the company presumably contained all of these 
materials.
    Historically, these liquid wastes were deposited into two unlined 
surface impoundments located on-site. The liquid wastes flowed downhill 
via an open drainage ditch from the electroplating building to the 
surface impoundments. These impoundments overflowed on occasion. Drums 
were also used for storage of plating solutions and disposal of plating 
wastes. Liquid wastes were discharged from floor drains directly to the 
soil through perforated pipe extending from the building in the 
direction of the surface impoundments. This practice continued until 
1982, when a fire virtually destroyed the electroplating building and 
ended plating operations.
    In 1987, an emergency removal action was conducted at the Site, 
during which the electroplating wastes remaining on-site in drums, 
vats, etc., were removed, and the fire-damaged electroplating building 
was demolished (due to contamination and unsafe conditions).
    Based on information that had been collected by EPA before 1987, 
the Aladdin Plating Superfund Site was placed on the NPL on July 22, 
1987. The investigation of the site was divided into two parts: soils 
(operable unit 1) and groundwater (operable unit 2).

Record of Decision--Soils

    EPA issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for operable unit 1 of the 
Aladdin Plating Superfund Site in September 1988. The ROD was based on 
all of the soil sampling that had been conducted by EPA, which had 
revealed extensive chromium contamination in the soils. The ROD 
outlined a remedial action for source control.
    The major components of the Remedial Action included:
    1. Cleanup of contaminated soil to a cleanup level of 50 parts per 
million (ppm) of chromium, the level determined to be protective of 
groundwater.
    2. Excavation and off-site stabilization of all chromium-
contaminated soil.
    3. Disposal of the stabilized soil in an appropriate off-site 
landfill.
    4. Replacement of excavated soil with clean fill.
    5. Future study of groundwater.
    This cleanup action was begun on November 16, 1989, and removal of 
contaminated soil continued through May 1991. The soil was transported 
to EPA-approved hazardous waste disposal facilities in Alabama (phase 
1) and Michigan (phase 2), where the soil was stabilized and/or 
solidified and then placed in permitted hazardous waste landfills. The 
area addressed in operable unit 1 measured approximately 400 feet by 
1500 feet, and a total of more than 29,000 cubic yards of soils were 
removed from the Site (both phases).

Record of Decision--Groundwater

    The second operable unit involved the study of groundwater. The 
liquid wastes discharged by the electroplating facility had caused 
contamination of the shallow water-bearing zone in the immediate area 
of the former plating building and impoundments. An extensive Remedial 
Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) was conducted at the Site and 
completed in January 1993. Based on this RI/FS, a ROD was issued on 
December 30, 1993, which determined that there was no current threat to 
human health or the environment from this contamination in its 
undisturbed condition. However, there was a concern that it could 
migrate into aquifers used for drinking water supplies in the area. 
Therefore, the remedy for operable unit 2 consisted of the following:
    1. Installation of four new monitoring wells (completed).
    2. Rehabilitation of all the existing monitoring wells (completed).
    3. Institutional controls on the Site property to prevent 
disturbance of the contaminated shallow groundwater beneath the Site 
(in place).
    The ROD also required five years of quarterly sampling of home 
wells adjacent to the Site and all on-site monitoring wells, followed 
by annual monitoring of these wells for thirty years. However, after 
the ROD was issued, it was determined that this activity was not a 
remedial activity, but a removal assessment activity. Therefore, on 
January 21, 2000, an Explanation of Significant Differences was issued 
which incorporated this change to the ROD. These sampling activities 
are being conducted, and will continue to be conducted for thirty 
years, but they are being completed as removal assessment activities 
rather than as part of the remedial action.
    The sampling of water from home wells has indicated that no 
significant chromium contamination has migrated to the home wells. To 
date, nineteen rounds of sampling of home wells and sixteen rounds of 
sampling of monitoring wells have been completed. The results of the 
monitoring well sampling indicate that chromium levels have decreased 
in the shallow water bearing zone near the location of the former 
electroplating building since the initial groundwater sampling in 1992. 
Additionally, it is evident that chromium contamination has not 
migrated beyond the areas found to be contaminated at that time and no 
significant chromium contamination has migrated to the home wells near 
the site. It appears that the soil remedial activities that were 
completed at the site has improved that shallow groundwater conditions. 
Based on this information, the conclusions in the ROD have been 
supported by the well sampling and appear to have been appropriate.
    To implement the institutional controls required by the ROD, on 
September 29, 2000, EPA issued an Administrative Order for Remedial 
Action (the Order) requiring the Site property owner to file a Notice 
of Use

[[Page 48020]]

Restriction (the Notice) and a copy of the Order with the Recorder of 
Deeds for Lackawanna County to ensure that the documents are available 
for public review accompanying the deed to the property. The Notice 
explains the existence of contamination at the Site, provides an 
advisory that there shall be no disturbance of the surface of the 
property, and explains that EPA has access to the Site at all 
reasonable times for the purpose of conducting any activity relating to 
Site responses. The Order also requires the owner to refrain from any 
activity that could disturb the soil on the property or result in the 
migration of chromium contamination from the Site. On February 14, 
2001, the Site owner presented the properly executed documents to the 
Recorder of Deeds for Lackawanna County to file accompanying the deed 
to the property.
    With the implementation of the institutional controls, the full 
remedy called for in the ROD of December 30, 1993, has been 
implemented.

Five-Year Review

    A five-year review for the Site was completed on September 29, 
1999. At that time, the remedy was not considered to be protective 
because the institutional controls were not yet in place. As stated 
above, the institutional controls are now in place. Five-year reviews 
for the Site will continue to be conducted. The next Review is 
scheduled to be completed by September 30, 2004.

Community Involvement

    Public participation activities have been satisfied as required in 
CERCLA section 113(k), 42 U.S.C. 9613(k), and CERCLA section 117, 42 
U.S.C. 9617. Documents in the deletion docket on which EPA relied to 
make this recommendation of deletion from the NPL are available to the 
public in the information repositories.

Applicable Deletion Criteria

    EPA is proposing deletion of this Site from the NPL. PADEP 
concurred with EPA that all appropriate responses under CERCLA have 
been implemented. Documents supporting this action are available from 
the docket. EPA believes that the criteria stated in section II(i) and 
(ii) for deletion of this Site have been met. Therefore, EPA is 
proposing the deletion of the Aladdin Plating Superfund Site from the 
NPL.

    Dated: September 5, 2001.
James W. Newsom,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region III.
[FR Doc. 01-22998 Filed 9-14-01; 8:45 am]
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