[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 184 (Monday, September 24, 2007)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 54230-54232]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-18579]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 300

[EPA-HQ-SFUND-2005-0011; FRL-8471-4]


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

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice of intent to delete the Tabernacle Drum Dump Superfund 
Site from the National Priorities List.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 is issuing 
this notice of intent to delete the Tabernacle Drum Dump Superfund Site 
(Site), located in Tabernacle Township, Burlington County, New Jersey 
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 (CERCLA), as 
amended. The EPA and the State of New Jersey, through the New Jersey 
Department of Environmental Protection, have determined that 
responsible parties have implemented all appropriate response actions 
required. No further operation and maintenance activities or five-year 
reviews are required at this site.

DATES: Comments concerning this site may be submitted on or before 
October 24, 2007.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID no. EPA-HQ-
SFUND-2005-0011, by one of the following methods:
     http://www.regulations.gov. Follow on-line instructions 
for submitting comments.
     E-mail: [email protected]. 
     Fax: (212) 637-4429.
     Mail: Douglas Tomchuk, Remedial Project Manager, U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, 290 Broadway, 19th Floor, 
New York, NY 10007-1866.
     Hand delivery: Douglas Tomchuk, U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, Region 2, 290 Broadway, 19th Floor, New York, NY 
10007-1866.
    Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket's normal hours 
of operation, and special arrangements should be made for deliveries of 
boxed information.
    Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID no. EPA-HQ-SFUND-
2005-0011. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included 
in the public docket without change and may be made available online at 
http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information 
provided, unless the comment includes information claimed to be 
Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose 
disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you 
consider to be CBI or otherwise protected through http://www.regulations.gov or e-mail. The http://www.regulations.gov Web site 
is an ``anonymous access'' system, which means EPA will not know your 
identity or contact information unless you provide it in the body of 
your comment. If you send an e-mail comment directly to EPA without 
going to http://www.regulations.gov, your e-mail address will be 
automatically captured and included as part of the comment that is 
placed in the public docket and made available on the Internet. If you 
submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends that you include your name 
and other contact information in the body of your comment and with any 
disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read your comment due to 
technical difficulties and cannot contact you for clarification, EPA 
may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic files should avoid 
the use of special characters, any form of encryption, and be free of 
any defects or viruses.
    Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the http://www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some 
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information 
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such 
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in the hard 
copy. Publicly available docket materials are available either 
electronically in http://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at:
    EPA Region 2 Superfund Records Center, 290 Broadway, Room 1828, New 
York, New York 10007-1866, (212) 637-4308, Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 
Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, by appointment only.
    Information on the Site is also available for viewing at the Site's 
information repository located at: Tabernacle Municipal Building, 163 
Carranza Road, Tabernacle, New Jersey 08088.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Douglas Tomchuk, Remedial Project 
Manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, 290 Broadway, 
19th Floor, New York, NY 10007-1866, Telephone: (212) 637-3956, Fax: 
(212) 637-4429, E-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Table of Contents

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



I. Introduction

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region II announces its 
intent to delete the Tabernacle Drum Dump, located on Carranza Road in 
Tabernacle Township, Burlington County, New Jersey, from the National 
Priorities List (NPL) and requests public comment on this action. The 
NPL constitutes Appendix B of the NCP, 40 CFR part 300, which EPA 
promulgated pursuant to section 105 of CERCLA, as amended. The 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 those sites. Sites on the NPL may be the subject of remedial actions 
financed by the Hazardous Substances 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.
    The EPA will accept comments on the proposal to delete this site 
for thirty (30) days after publication of this notice in the Federal 
Register.
    Section II of this notice explains the criteria for deleting sites 
from the NPL.

[[Page 54231]]

Section III discusses procedures that EPA is using for this action. 
Section IV discusses how the site meets the deletion criteria.

II. NPL Deletion Criteria

    The NCP establishes the criteria the Agency uses to delete sites 
from the NPL. In accordance with 40 CFR 300.425(e)(l)(i)-(iii), 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) 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 cleanup 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, taking of remedial measures is not appropriate.
    Even 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 will conduct site 
remedy reviews every five years to ensure that the implemented remedy 
protects 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

    The following procedures were used for the intended deletion of 
this site:
    (1) EPA selected a remedy for this site in a June 30, 1988 Record 
of Decision (ROD).
    (2) The Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) have completed a 
comprehensive cleanup at the site. The work included the removal and 
off-site disposal of drums, other containers, contaminated liquids and 
contaminated soil. Contaminated ground water was extracted, treated and 
then re-injected into the ground. The ground water cleanup was verified 
by a monitoring program that lasted five years. In addition, the 
property where the ground water treatment system was located has been 
restored in accordance with an approved Site Restoration Plan. No 
further remedial action is necessary at the Tabernacle Drum Dump site 
to ensure protection of human health and the environment.
    (3) All appropriate responses under CERCLA have been documented in 
the Final Close Out Report dated June 6, 2007.
    (4) The State of New Jersey, through the Department of 
Environmental Protection, has concurred with the proposed deletion 
decision;
    (5) A notice has been published in the local newspaper and has been 
distributed to appropriate federal, state and local officials and other 
interested parties announcing the commencement of a 30 day public 
comment period for EPA's Notice of Intent to Delete; and
    (6) All relevant documents have been made available for public 
review in the local Site information repositories.
    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 Agency management. 
As mentioned in section II of this Notice, Sec.  300.425(e)(3) of the 
NCP states that deletion of a site from the NPL does not preclude 
eligibility for future response actions.
    For deletion of this Site, EPA's Region 2 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 Agency will 
prepare a Responsiveness Summary, which will address any significant 
public comments received during the public comment period.
    The deletion occurs when the EPA Regional Administrator places a 
final notice in the Federal Register. Generally, the NPL will reflect 
any deletions in the final update following the Notice. Public notices 
and copies of the Responsiveness Summary will be made available to 
local residents by the Region 2 Office.

IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion

    The following summary provides the Agency's rationale for the 
proposal to delete this Site from the NPL and the Agency's finding that 
the criteria in 40 CFR 300.425(e) are satisfied:

(A) Site History

    The Tabernacle Drum Dump is located in Tabernacle Township, 
Burlington County, New Jersey. The Site is a wooded one-acre parcel of 
undeveloped land, bordered to the northwest by farmland and to the 
south and east by residential properties. The Site is located in the 
northern region of the New Jersey Pinelands.
    Between 1977 and 1984 Atlantic Disposal Services, Inc., (ADS) 
disposed of approximately 200 containers on the property. The 
containers included 55-gallon drums, 5-gallon paint cans and 20-gallon 
containers, which held solvents, paint sludges and heavy metals. 
Deterioration and leakage of some of the containers resulted in visible 
contamination of the soils, and ultimately, contamination of ground 
water underlying and downgradient of the Site.
    In September 1983, the Tabernacle Drum Dump site was proposed to 
the NPL, and the site was approved for inclusion on the NPL in 
September 1984.

(B) Immediate Actions

    In February 1984, EPA issued an administrative order to ADS to 
perform a surface cleanup of the site, along with certain 
investigations of ground water contamination. ADS completed the surface 
cleanup of the site in July 1984, which consisted of removing the 
containers found at the site, 40 cubic yards of material from the 
drums, eight truck loads of excavated contaminated soil and 
approximately 3,000 gallons of liquid material. However, ADS did not 
implement the investigations of the subsurface soils or ground water.

(C) Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study

    EPA conducted a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) 
for the site, beginning with preliminary sampling in July 1985. The 
Remedial Investigation report found chromium, cyanide and lead in the 
surface soils above background levels, but below New Jersey soil 
cleanup levels. In the groundwater, cadmium, chromium, lead, 1,1,1-
trichloroethane, 1,1-dichloroethane were found exceeding background 
levels and Applicable or Revelant and Appropriate Requirements (ARARs). 
The Remedial Investigation was completed in December 1987.

(D) Selected Remedy

    Based on the RI/FS, EPA selected a remedy for the Site in a Record 
of Decision (ROD) which was signed on June 30, 1988, which included the 
following major elements:
     Installation of additional ground-water monitoring wells 
to further delineate the extent of the contaminant plume;
     Implementation of a ground water monitoring program for 
downgradient residential wells to delineate the contaminant plume;
     Additional soil sampling at the former drum dumping and 
storage area to confirm previous data which indicated only trace levels 
of contaminants;

[[Page 54232]]

     Extraction of the contaminated ground water through 
pumping followed by on-site treatment and reinjection of the treated 
effluent into the ground, until federal and state cleanup standards 
have been attained to the maximum extent practicable; and
     Implementation of a ground water monitoring program for a 
period of five years after site cleanup goals have been achieved.

(E) Remedial Actions

    The cleanup of the Site was completed through various remedial 
actions including the removal and off-site disposal of drums, 
containers and contaminated surface soils, and the extraction of 
contaminated ground water with treatment and re-injection. The sampling 
in the former drum dump and storage area, subsequent to the removal 
action, found only trace levels of contaminants remaining in surface 
and subsurface soils at the Site (below NJDEP Cleanup Standards for 
contaminated sites (N.J.A.C. 7:26D)), and therefore no further action 
was warranted for the soil. The pump and treat system was constructed 
and subsequently ran from August 30, 1993 to June 21, 1997 at a rate of 
approximately 7,000,000 gallons per month (160 gallons per minute). The 
cleanup levels specified in the ROD were 26 parts per billion (ppb) for 
1,1,1-trichlorethane and 2 ppb for 1,1-dichloroethene. A post-
construction monitoring program was conducted between July 1997 and 
July 2001, and found no detections of 1,1,1-trichloroethane in the 
designated monitoring wells above the detection limit of 1 ppb after 
October 1999, and no detections above the detection limit of 1 ppb of 
1,1 dichloroethene during the post-construction monitoring period.

(F) Operation and Maintenance

    There are no operations, maintenance or monitoring activities 
remaining to be performed. All remedial activities, including 
monitoring, are complete and the site poses no unacceptable risk to 
human health or the environment. The property utilized for ground water 
treatment has been restored. All structures and underground piping have 
been removed, all wells have been properly sealed and vegetation has 
been re-established. Monitoring of the new plantings and seeding will 
occur for three growing seasons in accordance with an approved Site 
Restoration Plan.

(G) Five Year Review

    A Five-year review of the selected remedy for the Site was signed 
on September 10, 1998. It found that there are no hazardous substances, 
pollutants, or contaminants remaining at this site above levels that 
would allow for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure. The remedy was 
found to protect public health and the environment and was likely to 
remain so. No further five-year reviews required and no other 
engineered, access or institutional controls are needed.

(H) Community Involvement

    Public participation activities for the Tabernacle Drum Dump 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 RI/FS, the ROD, as well 
as other documents and information that EPA relied on or considered in 
recommending that no further action is necessary at the Tabernacle Drum 
Dump Site, and that the site should be deleted from the NPL, are 
available for the public to review at the information repositories.

(I) Site Meets Deletion Criteria

    One of the three criteria for deletion specifies that EPA may 
delete a site from the NPL if EPA, in consultation with the State, has 
determined that responsible parties or other persons have implemented 
all appropriate response actions required; 40 CFR 300.425(e)(1)(i).
    EPA, with the concurrence of the State of New Jersey, through the 
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, believes that this 
criterion for deletion has been met. Consequently, EPA is proposing 
deletion of this site from the NPL. Documents supporting this action 
are available at the information repositories in the deletion docket.
    In a letter dated August 30, 2006, the New Jersey Department of 
Environmental Protection concurred with EPA that all appropriate CERCLA 
response actions have been completed at the Tabernacle Drum Dump site 
and protection of human health and the environment has been achieved.

    Dated: August 17, 2007.
Alan Steinberg,
Regional Administrator, Region 2.
[FR Doc. E7-18579 Filed 9-21-07; 8:45 am]
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